“It doesn’t enlarge anything,” said Lyle, “but it has the potential to be a pretty amazing wrinkle reducer.”
“Antiaging is huge,” said Cynthia. “The baby boomers are so old their children are getting old; we could do a lot with a new wrinkle reducer.”
“It’s a very clever system,” said Lyle, pleased to have their positive attention. “Your skin is primarily composed of collagen, and other proteins, and as you get old your skin stops producing quite so much of it, and that’s what makes it sag and shrivel. The plasmids help you heal from a burn by producing more collagen—or more accurately, by tricking your cells into overproducing it. When you apply it to healthy skin, it creates extra collagen and fills out the sags and wrinkles. Here, I think I have some of our test photos here.…” He riffled through his folder. “Every other antiaging product on the market, from Botox to makeup to everything else, is all just covering the problem, or stretching the problem, or doing something to hide it. But a lotion that directly stimulates your skin cells to build more collagen is actually solving the problem—not just hiding the wrinkles, but reversing them.”
“Rejuvagen!” shouted Kerry. “The first skin care product that actually reverses the aging process, exclusively from NewYew!”
“That’s not bad,” said Carl, pointing an unsteady finger at Kerry.
“Thanks,” said Lyle uncertainly. He found the photo he wanted and placed it on the table. “This is one of our early test subjects. We were testing the healing properties on a small abrasion here, on her cheek, but you can see her whole face pretty well.”
“Wait,” said Sunny cautiously. “You said it goes into the cells? What do you mean by that, exactly?”
“Well, it’s a plasmid,” said Lyle, “so it—”
Carl cut him off. “I don’t care how it works, I care if we can protect it, economically and legally. You say this came from a university study—is the research public domain?”
“The university study was an academic proof of concept,” said Lyle. “The technology is fully public, and the plasmids themselves are pretty common. I ordered these off the shelf from a chemical supply place.”
“But how invasive is it?” asked Sunny. “If it messes with the cells directly we’ll probably have to run it past the FDA, and that could take years. If you think we can really use this, a portion of the budget will have to go toward that.”
“The FDA will never pass it,” said Cynthia sternly, picking up the photocopied page and pointing to the blurry text. “Lyle forgot to mention that this is gene therapy.”
“Gene therapy?” asked Carl.
Sunny laughed. “The FDA has never approved gene therapy in a consumer product, Lyle, why didn’t you tell us up front this was a gene thing?”
“I said it was plasmids,” said Lyle, looking around the room. “What else would I be talking about?”
“Nobody knows what plasmids are,” said Kerry.
“I told you,” said Jeffrey, “they were in that game.”
“A plasmid is a circle of DNA,” said Lyle, ignoring him. “They’re a very small, very efficient way of transcribing genetic information. The one I’m using attaches itself to your DNA to prompt the creation of HSP47, which is a heat-shock protein—”
“This is genetic engineering,” said Sunny, shaking his head. “There’s no way the FDA would even get near it.”
“It’s not exactly a weird technology,” said Lyle defensively. “I told you, I bought these by the case from a lab supplier. They’re everywhere.”
“They’re everywhere in labs,” said Sunny, “not in consumer products. That’s a pretty huge difference.”
“Let me see your test results,” said Cynthia, looking at the photos. Lyle slid his folder across the table, but Sunny shook his head.
“The tests don’t matter,” said Sunny. “It could be the most effective antiaging product in the world and we still wouldn’t be able to sell it.”
“But it is,” said Cynthia, looking up from the file. She was smiling, but Lyle thought it looked surprisingly predatory. “The most effective antiaging product in the world. Look at his notes in the margin: ‘A seventy-six percent reduction in deep wrinkles. Complete reversal of fine lines. Full results in two weeks, visible results in a matter of days.’” She looked at Carl. “This is a gold mine.”
“It’s a gold mine we can’t touch,” Sunny insisted. “At least not without another ten years of FDA testing. Seriously, Lyle, we shouldn’t even have been testing this without good legal coverage.”
“The subjects all signed the release forms,” said Lyle, “and I passed them all on to you.”
“But you didn’t tell me they were for genetic engineering!” said Sunny. “What if something goes wrong?”
“Now ease up a bit,” said Carl, leaning forward. The others in the room stopped and looked at him—Carl never leaned forward unless he had something very important to say. “If this lotion is as good as Cynthia says, what are our options?”
“With gene therapy?” asked Sunny. “Nothing. Wait ten years for FDA approval, or scrap it and reformulate.”
“How closely did you look at this photo?” said Cynthia, placing it back in the center of the table. Everyone leaned in to examine it.
“Cute,” said Kerry. “Is this a teen product?”
“That’s a forty-three-year-old woman,” said Cynthia, “after just three weeks of treatment. With a face like that she could get picked up by a pedophile.”
The room was silent. Carl stared at the photo. “Lyle,” he said slowly, “are these results typical?”
Lyle couldn’t help but smile. “The woman in that photo had a fairly youthful face to begin with—there’s more going on there than just our lotion—but yes, in general, that level of wrinkle reduction is typical of our test cases. I’ve had several of them call back to ask if they could get more. This product has the potential to be a best seller like we haven’t seen since … paclitaxel, really. Everyone’s going to want this.”
Carl stared at the table in front of him frowning in thought. At last he spoke, without looking up. “Sunny, you’re going to find a way for us to sell this.”
“But—”
“If you do,” said Carl, “I will personally buy you a Caribbean island, and I will do it with the loose change this product puts under my couch cushions.”
Sunny paused. “It could be huge … but only if there’s a way to make it work legally.”
“Find a way.” Carl looked at Kerry. “I want a name, I want commercials, I want bottle designs, I want everything.”
“Absolutely,” said Kerry.
