Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 655 I'm the one who developed controlled nuclear fusion?

The emergence of 'Entecene' is of great significance to the medical community today... because it is not only a broad-spectrum anticancer drug, but also the second broad-spectrum anticancer drug.

Its emergence proves a very important point, and one that countless pharmaceutical companies have been trying to prove for many years: the replicability of the Xeloda technology route!
When chilokta came out, it was like a bolt from the blue for the medical community, greatly shocking professionals in the global pharmaceutical field, from doctors to drug developers.

Since Xeloda's emergence, countless pharmaceutical companies and research institutions worldwide, including Galaxy Biotech (Galaxy Life), have been studying it...

From its basic structure to its pharmacology, everything is the focus of researchers' attention.

Research on Xeloda has also yielded numerous technological advancements, with many large pharmaceutical companies developing several biological gene drugs targeting specific cancers based on Xeloda's pharmacological properties.

Although these gene therapy drugs can only target a single gene or a single type of cancer, and their production costs are relatively high, with treatment costs often reaching millions of dollars per injection, they are still considered a huge breakthrough for the pharmaceutical industry... at least to some extent mimicking the pharmacological properties of Xeloda.

Furthermore, in the past few years, many wealthy people have successfully treated cancer using this single-gene drug.

The biggest difference between these drugs and Xeloda is that Xeloda, after entering the human body, triggers a series of reactions, producing substances that stimulate the human immune system and guide it to precisely eliminate cancer cells in the body.

These single-gene drugs work by altering an individual's unique genes in the external environment to produce special substances, which are then injected into the body to guide the body's immune system to eliminate cancer cells. This approach bypasses the most complex and technically challenging aspect of the universal adaptation method.

Xeloda can be mass-produced in a standardized manner, and its actual manufacturing cost is actually very low... Don't be fooled by the fact that it sells for tens of thousands of dollars per course of treatment, the actual manufacturing cost of a course of 30 pills is only a few dozen dollars!

Other pharmaceutical companies develop single-gene anti-cancer drugs that require customized preparation for each individual. The preparation cost alone can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Considering profit and other costs, a price of over one million dollars per course of treatment is actually considered quite reasonable by the pharmaceutical companies...

Of course, a price of over a million dollars already results in low sales. If it were more expensive, sales would be even lower... and a product without sales has no value.

Therefore, these pharmaceutical companies are actually quite conflicted when pricing these exorbitantly priced drugs. On the one hand, they want to maximize profits to recoup the huge R&D costs; but on the other hand, they don't want the prices to be too high, which would lead to a decrease in sales, because a decrease in sales would also reduce total profits.

Product pricing needs to strike an optimal balance between gross profit margin and sales volume in order to maximize total profit.

Therefore, product pricing is a very complex subject... it's not something you can just decide to do on a whim and sell as much as you want.

In recent years, quite a few of these single-gene anti-cancer drugs, costing millions of dollars, have emerged.

However, before Entecavir, companies were still able to develop a broad-spectrum anticancer drug suitable for the general population.

Now, Galaxy Biotech Group has announced that it has successfully replicated Xeloda's technology and developed a second broad-spectrum anticancer drug, 'Entecene'.

This left a lot of pharmaceutical company executives with very mixed feelings.

On the one hand, there is joy. The emergence of Entecavir means that Xeloda's technical approach can be replicated... Since the technical approach has been proven to be replicable, then they can too in the future. As long as they continue to invest and work harder, they might be able to develop a broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug.

Alternatively, this technological approach could be applied to other diseases.

It's not just cancer drugs that are profitable; there are actually many other drugs that can be very lucrative.

However, on the other hand, these people were also panicked and helpless... because the company that developed Entecine was not their company, but that damned Galaxy Bio Group.

At the same time, the emergence of Entecavir means that a large portion of the anti-cancer market will be taken away... Those who produce anti-cancer drugs, chemotherapy equipment, and consumables are all unhappy.

Especially for pharmaceutical companies that have recently successfully developed some single-gene anti-cancer drugs, their drugs haven't been on the market for long. If these drugs overlap with the indications of Entecavir, it basically means that their previous investments have gone down the drain.

The response from the medical community has been intense, and the reaction from cancer patients and their families has been even stronger!
Many cancer patients have cancer types that are not within the treatment scope of Xelocta. They either rely on traditional treatments or seek new drugs that are currently in clinical trials, such as the several single-gene anticancer drugs that have emerged in recent years...

However, the exorbitant price of a single course of treatment, costing millions of dollars, is not something everyone can afford, and many commercial health insurance policies do not reimburse clients for such exorbitantly priced drugs... not to mention, many people don't even have commercial health insurance.

Many cancer patients and their families who had no other indications for Xeloda went practically insane after learning about the emergence of Entecavir.

On the same day that Galaxy Biotech Group held its press conference, related terms for Entecine successively topped the lists of major global news platforms and spread rapidly on communication and social media platforms.

The phone lines at Galaxy Biotech's subsidiaries and offices around the world were instantly overwhelmed with inquiries... Countless people were asking about the specific indications for Entecavir, the timing of clinical trials, and most importantly, when it would be available for market.
In response, Galaxy Biotech Group quickly issued a corresponding announcement.

First, regarding the indications, Galaxy Biotech Group stated in its announcement that Entecavir has not yet completed clinical trials and cannot determine specific indications. However, based on previous experimental results, it is initially expected to be effective for the following nine indications... and listed the names of the nine indications.

Regarding the timing of clinical trials and market launch, the group responded that they are accelerating clinical trials, and the specific timing will be announced separately. As for market launch, they will need to complete Phase III clinical trials before applying for market launch approval.

All of this will take time!
It takes a considerable amount of time for a drug to go from clinical trials to market, and even the widely discussed Entecavir is no exception.

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Xu Shenxue did not pay much attention to the subsequent clinical trials and market launch of Entecavir. The drug had already been developed, and things could proceed step by step. Galaxy Bio-Group had sufficient experience and resources to promote it.

Xu Shenxue has been quite busy lately, with many things to pay attention to, so he can't devote too much time and energy to things that have already been basically finalized.

If he had to personally drive and deploy every business and every product, he would never be able to complete such a massive amount of work, no matter how hard he tried.

His daily work mainly involves controlling the company's strategic direction, making personnel adjustments, arranging the flow of large sums of money, and paying attention to core technology research and development as well as product business.

In late February, Xu Shenxue convened a meeting of senior executives of Fairy Mountain Holdings in Shenzhen, with more than 20 senior managers in attendance.

During the meeting, Xu Shenxue once again emphasized the importance of technological research and development to the core senior management of Fairy Mountain Holdings, stressing the need to ensure that the company's operations always revolve around technological research and development.

Among the research and development of many new technologies, the research and development of various new materials is of paramount importance. Xu Shenxue requested that Fairy Mountain Holdings prioritize funding for various material research and development projects in its capital expenditures over the next few years.

Xu Shenxue emphasized at the meeting that "materials are the foundation of all new technologies".

Although these words are old clichés and nothing new, many things need to be said repeatedly... otherwise, subordinates will ignore or underestimate them... So Xu Shenxue would repeatedly emphasize these points in the technical and materials fields to convey his attitude to his management team.

After exchanging pleasantries, he also held a small, private meeting with some senior executives from Fairy Mountain Holdings who were responsible for different business areas.

The meetings were primarily with the Superconducting Quantum Devices and Consumables Business Group and the Semiconductor Devices and Consumables Business Group.

These two businesses are the core businesses of Fairy Mountain Holdings, and can even be said to be their main businesses at present... Many other businesses are actually just supporting or incidental.

Back then, Xu Shenxue established Fairy Mountain Holdings to solve the problem of domestic production of semiconductor equipment and consumables... This problem was extremely serious at the time, directly choking a series of intelligent terminal industry chains led by Zhiyun Group, and later also choking intelligent electric vehicles.

Basically, industries that require advanced semiconductor chips are in great demand for semiconductor equipment and consumables, which are the underlying industries... Without them, no matter how hard we try, we will be held hostage by outsiders.

After years of continuous investment and research and development, Fairy Mountain Holdings has solved this problem by developing EUV lithography machines and a series of supporting semiconductor equipment and consumables.

In the following years, in order to support the production of advanced superconducting quantum computers, we began to develop various equipment and consumables needed for the manufacturing of superconducting quantum chips, namely the superconducting quantum equipment and consumables business.

Both of these businesses are core, underlying components of the industrial system... In terms of market size, they're not that big, but without them, the industry wouldn't function...

In fact, there are many similar underlying core industries, but China basically has them all. Even if they are not top-notch, they are at the first or second level, so there will be no situation where we are held back by a bottleneck!
There are hundreds of industrial categories in the industrial system. In fact, any one of them can be considered a major industry. Lacking any one of them would leave us vulnerable to being held back by external forces... Unfortunately, we have a complete industrial chain.

In other words, the company had previously performed poorly in the semiconductor equipment and consumables sector, which led to being held back by technological bottlenecks, while other industries fared much better.

Within the entire industrial system, there are a few industries where we can hold others hostage, such as rare earths. In most industries, we are also at a first-class level, so we can't hold others hostage, and others can't hold us hostage either… There are many of these, too numerous to count.

A small portion still needs to be imported, but we have second-rate products. Even if external supplies are cut off, our own second-rate products can fill the gap.

There are also a few cases where the technology was once restricted, but the problem has now been solved. A typical example is the semiconductor equipment and consumables field led by Xu Shenxue.

Fairy Mountain Holdings is doing just that.

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In addition to its two main core businesses—semiconductor equipment and consumables, and superconducting quantum equipment and consumables—Fairy Mountain Holdings also has a large number of ancillary businesses.

For example, the data cable business, charging head business, camera business and many other miscellaneous businesses are basically just orders that Zhiyun Group and Weiku Electronics Group pass on to some subsidiaries under the Fairy Mountain Holdings system. The purpose is very simple: to inject funds into Fairy Mountain Holdings... After all, you can't do underlying technology research and development without money.

Then there are many new materials, new technologies, and new equipment that emerge during the research and development of underlying technologies, and then they are commercialized. The most typical example is the positive and negative electrode materials used in solid-state batteries.

The hybrid oxide polymer solid-state batteries developed and produced by Hailan Battery use new materials for both the positive and negative electrodes, developed by Fairy Mountain Holdings. Hailan Battery now purchases large quantities of these new solid-state battery materials from Fairy Mountain Holdings every year!
The cost of materials purchased by Hailan Battery accounts for about 40% of the cost of its solid-state batteries... In recent years, Fairy Mountain Holdings has obtained a lot of funds just by selling these two new materials.

To be honest, Fairy Mountain Holdings' most profitable business is not selling semiconductor equipment and consumables, nor is it selling superconducting quantum equipment and consumables... even though each of these devices seems very expensive.

But in reality, Fairy Mountain Holdings' most profitable business is selling solid-state battery materials... It is precisely because selling solid-state battery materials is so profitable that Fairy Mountain Holdings has truly turned a profit!

After ten years of continuous losses, accumulating losses of over 800 billion yuan, Fairy Mountain Holdings has finally entered a virtuous cycle of turning a profit and no longer needs continuous financial support from Xu Shenxue and higher authorities.

This is quite remarkable... In the past, Fairy Mountain Holdings needed Xu Shenxue and related institutional shareholders to provide funds in various ways every year. In some years, the combined amount was several hundred billion yuan, and in others, it was even over a hundred billion yuan.

Blood transfusions year after year, endlessly...

In the last two years, the situation has finally improved, and the two sides no longer have to grit their teeth and continue to inject large amounts of capital into Fairy Mountain Holdings every year!
The key is that the materials used in solid-state batteries are very profitable!
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In addition to solid-state battery materials, Fairy Mountain Holdings also sells all sorts of other new materials or components made from new materials.

For example, the domestic aviation industry has adopted a large number of new materials provided by Fairy Mountain Holdings, such as the X1 and X3 projects. In addition, some manned fighter jets under development have also made extensive use of new materials provided by Fairy Mountain Holdings, ranging from airframe materials to engine materials.

Many projects within the Zhiyun Group also extensively utilize various new materials provided by Fairy Mountain Holdings, such as many materials used in the manufacture of quantum chips.

Nanmen Aerospace uses a large amount of new materials provided by Fairy Mountain Holdings in various spacecraft such as rockets, space shuttles, spacecraft, and space stations.

Selling various materials and components made from those materials has been one of Fairy Mountain Holdings' main sources of funding in recent years.

The reason for this change is that Fairy Mountain Holdings has various underlying theories provided by Professor Wang Binyao, a top materials expert.

At the application level, artificial intelligence is being used on a large scale for materials research and development... like finding a needle in a haystack.

Over the years, a massive amount of new materials have been developed... Fairy Mountain Holdings' material reserve contains technical data on tens of thousands of new materials. As for when they will be available, only God knows.

Xu Shenxue has always attached great importance to the materials research of Fairy Mountain Holdings, so he has repeatedly emphasized this point in meetings.

In terms of specific business operations, the focus is mainly on semiconductor equipment and consumables, and superconducting quantum equipment and consumables.

Finally, there is one secret project: controlled nuclear fusion led by Xinghai Energy.

Although the project belongs to Fairy Mountain Holdings, not all senior management members are aware of its existence.

The project is currently under high secrecy and is personally led by Professor Wang Binyao. Only three senior executives at Fairy Mountain Holdings know about the project. The other dozen or so senior managers know about the existence of this secret subsidiary, Xinghai Energy, but do not know what this subsidiary is doing.

Even within Xinghai Energy, very few people know the full picture of the project. Many technical R&D talents who join the company only know some information about a certain subsystem they developed, but most of them don't actually know what that subsystem is used for.

So one day in the future, when the information about controlled nuclear fusion is made public, many employees of Xinghai Energy, even the key technical R&D personnel, will probably be dumbfounded: What kind of company is this? It's so amazing that it has actually developed nuclear fusion?
What? This was done by our company? How come I didn't know about it?
Oh my god, I was actually involved in this project, and even took on the development of a core subsystem? Wait, how come I didn't know that?
Finally, many people will be stunned and ask a soul-searching question: I'm the one who developed controlled nuclear fusion?

This is also a common characteristic of 99% of the technical personnel involved in the project: they are unaware that they have participated in the research and development of controlled nuclear fusion technology!
This is true even within Xinghai Energy, let alone other companies, research institutes, and universities that cooperate with Xinghai Energy.

They also didn't know anything about controlled nuclear fusion. They just received a research and development task for a certain subsystem or component, and then buried themselves in research and development... From beginning to end, they didn't actually know what the subsystem or component they were developing was for.

Very few people actually know the full picture of a project...

When Xu Shenxue and the people from Fairy Mountain Holdings meet, they don't talk about controlled nuclear fusion to all the senior management. They only discuss it in small, confidential meetings with a few senior managers in charge of the project.

He was quite satisfied with the feedback from the meeting, as the Xinghai-1 controlled nuclear fusion experimental reactor had entered the prototype manufacturing stage.

Prior to this, they had completed the overall machine design, the design of each subsystem, and also solved some key core problems.

Currently, the research results of hundreds of thousands of people are being compiled, the various subsystems are being assembled, and then the Xinghai-1 system is being assembled. Then, repeated experiments, verifications, comparisons, etc. are being conducted to seek the optimal result.

The entire process is expected to take about two and a half years... Of course, this is the theoretical time; in reality, it may be earlier or later.

After all, it's such a large project. Although the core issues have been largely resolved, some minor problems may still arise frequently. Many things work well when simulated by computers, but they don't work when actually implemented.

Or, a single subsystem might function perfectly well, but when it works in conjunction with other subsystems, it suddenly and inexplicably encounters numerous problems.

These are all problems that need to be solved in the fields of engineering design and manufacturing.

Controlled nuclear fusion is something like that.

Professor Wang Binyao, a top scientist, led his team to solve the core materials, subsystem design, and overall machine design...

How to build it is a purely engineering problem that requires not only the efforts of a large number of scientists, but also the efforts of a large number of ordinary people and even skilled workers.

Wang Binyao's core team alone couldn't have developed controlled nuclear fusion... It requires the combined efforts of hundreds of thousands of engineers.

Xu Shenxue is very confident in China's engineering and manufacturing capabilities... In today's world, even setting aside core technology theories, new materials, and the design of complete machines or subsystems, China is a formidable force.

Let's just talk about pure manufacturing!
Globally, China's capabilities are absolutely top-notch.

If we can't even do it domestically, then we can't expect other countries to do it either.

After a multi-day meeting of senior executives at Fairy Mountain Holdings, Xu Shenxue gained a general understanding of the company's basic situation.

Next, Xu Shenxue will convene strategic meetings for other important companies under his control.

With more companies under his management, naturally, there's more work to do. Other bosses might hold a meeting and be done in a few days at most, but Xu Shenxue has to hold seven or eight meetings continuously, lasting about twenty days.
At least the major subsidiaries should hold meetings in turn so that the newly appointed senior management can get to know the boss, understand the boss's strategic direction and attitude...

(End of this chapter)