American Medicine God: Starting by Inheriting a Pharmaceutical Company and Selling Medicine

Boston, Harvard Medical School.

Built in 1782, this red-brick complex stands on the banks of the Charles River, its walls stained crimson by the ivy of late autumn. It is a sanctuary of modern medicine, a Mecca for countless doctors.

Dr. Raymond Sterling stood at his office window, watching the medical students hurrying past below. They were young, energetic, and their eyes shone with a desire for the future.

He felt like a microscope that was about to break down.

He was sixty-five years old, with a full head of silver hair, wearing a Harris tweed suit and a deep red bow tie even indoors. As a tenured professor of neurology, he should have been enjoying the highest honors, but at this moment, his brows were tightly furrowed.

On the table lay a letter from the NIH (National Institutes of Health). The envelope had been opened, and the edges of the letter were slightly wrinkled.

Rejection letter.

His application for a research project on "early intervention for brain function degeneration" has been rejected again. This is the third time.

The review committee's comments were as scathing as knives: "lacking sufficient clinical evidence to support it," "too radical," "suspected of medical overreach," and "suggested that the research focus be shifted to the care of patients already diagnosed."

"A bunch of short-sighted idiots," Dr. Sterling muttered under his breath, crumpling the letter into a ball and throwing it slammed into the wastebasket.

In his eyes, modern medicine is going astray. Doctors are like repairmen, only starting to patch things up after the machine has completely broken down. They only start pacing when the heart stops beating, only perform bypass surgery when blood vessels are blocked, and only provide care when someone is suffering from dementia.

Why not tighten it when the first screw is loose?

Why can't we repair the brain when the first neuron withers?

His theory of "early intervention for brain health" suggests that interventions in the brain's aging process should begin at age 30 or even earlier, using nutritional and pharmaceutical methods. However, this has offended conservatives, who have accused him of "selling anxiety" and "trying to turn healthy people into patients."

Without funding, his lab would have to shut down. Those precious genetically modified mice, that data that could potentially change the fate of humanity, would all be discarded because he couldn't afford the freezing costs.

This feeling of powerlessness terrified him more than the aging process itself.

"They don't understand you, Doctor. Just like the Church didn't understand Galileo back then."

A gentle yet magnetic voice came from the doorway, breaking the dead silence in the office.

Sterling whirled around. A young man stood in the doorway, dressed in a dark blue suit, holding a long-handled black umbrella, looking like an English gentleman straight out of an old movie. His demeanor was incongruous with the old college, yet strangely harmonious, as if he belonged there.

"Who are you?" Sterling asked warily, his hand instinctively pressing on the telephone on the table. This floor was the administrative area, and strangers rarely came in.

"Victor. The managing director of the Water Group." Victor smiled as he entered the office, gently placing his umbrella against the door. "And also your most loyal reader."

He took a book from his briefcase—"The Twilight of the Brain," a work by Dr. Sterling published ten years ago. It had sold poorly, was long out of print, and even the publisher was unwilling to reprint it. But the copy in Victor's hand had a worn cover, yellowed pages, and was densely covered with labels and notes of different colors.

"This chapter, on 'Neuroplasticity and Early Intervention,' is nothing short of a prophetic genius." Victor opened the book, pointed to a passage, and his eyes revealed genuine admiration. "You foresaw today's crisis ten years ago: the exponential increase in social pressure is accelerating the entropy of the human brain. It's just a pity that the world has taken too long to catch up with you."

Sterling's gaze fell on the book, and the wariness on his face relaxed slightly. For a solitary pioneer, nothing is more gratifying than encountering a knowledgeable confidant, even if that confidant is a businessman.

"Walt Corporation?" Sterling scoffed, settling back into his leather chair. "I know you. That company that started by selling painkillers. I heard you've been up to some 'Nirvana' thing lately, claiming it can give people a new lease on life. It's all just marketing hype."

"Business is a means, not an end."

Victor was not angered by the other party's contempt; he walked straight to the bookshelf.

"Doctor, why do you think the NIH rejected your application?"

"Because they're conservative, rigid, and controlled by vested interest groups!" Sterling said indignantly, raising his voice several decibels. "They'd rather spend billions of dollars on hopeless late-stage treatments than give me a million dollars to research prevention. Because prevention doesn't make big money; only treating diseases makes hospitals and pharmaceutical companies rich."

"No, Doctor. You're wrong."

"It's because your voice isn't loud enough."

"In this day and age, truth will be drowned out by noise if it is not shouted out loud. You need a megaphone. A megaphone that can be heard by the White House, Congress, Wall Street, and every ordinary family."

Sterling looked at Victor and remained silent for a moment. He saw in the young man's eyes an ambition, a fire he himself had once possessed in his youth.

"What are you trying to say?"

"What if I told you that the Vought Group is willing to fully fund your research?" Victor said slowly, each word crystal clear, "Not just one million, but ten million, even one hundred million."

Sterling paused for a moment, then let out a cold laugh and shook his head: "There's no such thing as a free lunch. What do you want me to do? Endorse your drug? Say on TV that 'Nirvana' is a miracle drug? Make me sell my academic reputation like a circus clown? Young man, you've come to the wrong person."

“No, that’s too low-level.” Victor shook his head, his expression becoming serious and solemn, as if he had been insulted. “I don’t need you to sell drugs. That’s a salesperson’s job. To have a scientist sell drugs is a desecration of science.”

"I need you to sell an 'idea'."

"Ideas?" Sterling frowned.

"Yes. A concept that 'brain health is the cornerstone of dignity'."

Victor pulled up a chair and sat opposite Sterling, like two chess players playing a game.

"We want to tell the public that brain health is not a luxury, but a necessity. Just as people brush their teeth for dental health and run for heart health, they need regular checkups, nutritional supplements, and—scientific intervention—for brain health."

"This isn't a commercial promotion; this is 'public health enlightenment,'" Victor said in a deep, powerful voice. "We need to redefine what 'health' means. Occasional forgetfulness, low moods, and difficulty concentrating are no longer normal physiological phenomena, but 'pathological signals.' We must declare war on these signals."

"This is not just medicine, this is human rights."