24
DrugWatchAmerica was not at all what Rachel had expected. Hidden away on the first floor of a walk-up brownstone in the shabbier end of Foggy Bottom, that delightfully named suburb of Washington DC, the entrance was almost entirely blocked by a shoulder-high stack of boxes containing flyers advertising a rally against ‘POISONING A GENERATION’ due to happen in Lafayette Park. Assuming they don’t get blasted with a water cannon first, thought Rachel cynically, grabbing a flyer and putting it in her pocket.
The inside of the office was no less chaotic – a clutter of mismatched desks piled high with more papers and boxes, the walls covered with posters and cork pinboards, everyone seeming to talk at once, either to each other or into their phones.
Megan Hill, however, was exactly as Rachel had imagined. The brains behind the consumer watchdog group ‘keeping an eye on Big Pharma’ had long red Pre-Raphaelite hair, wire-rimmed glasses and a floaty hippyish dress. She looked like she should be carrying a placard, but Rachel guessed that was all part of the act. Ross had researched Megan Hill, and her CV was eye-popping. The daughter of two sixties civil-rights campaigners, she had grown up on Boston’s south side before crossing the Charles River to graduate third in her class at Harvard Law. She could have been earning an indecent salary on Wall Street or for one of the prominent litigation firms in Washington, but clearly the influence of her committed parents had been strong. Instead, she was heading up a cash-strapped group of liberal agitators and making waves across the cyberverse with her DrugWatch blog.
‘Rachel Miller?’ she said, crossing to shake hands and closing the door to her tiny office. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mess, we have a protest march at the weekend. It’s caused quite a stir already.’
‘Well thank you for seeing me at such short notice,’ said Rachel, taking a seat opposite Megan.
‘Are you kidding? I’ve been following Rheladrex since it was first trialled eight years ago. Then I get a call from a relative of Julian Denver? I’m going to cancel my own kid’s birthday party for that.’
‘You knew Julian?’
‘Miss Miller, please. I’m the co-founder of DrugWatchAmerica. It’s my job to be familiar with the CEOs of all the drug companies and their bosses above them. I heard about Julian’s death,’ she said more softly. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
Rachel nodded politely. ‘As I said on the phone, I wanted to pick your brains about Rheladrex.’
Contacting a pressure group with specialist knowledge of Big Pharma was the quickest way of learning about the drug. After speaking to Laura Dale, Ross and Rachel had trawled the internet trying to find the best and most convenient person to help them, and had chanced upon DrugWatchAmerica through a conspiracy theory website.
‘Sure,’ said Megan, sitting back in her chair. ‘We’ve been aware of it before it even entered late-stage development. You see – and most people are surprised by this – not many genuinely new blockbuster drugs make it to market these days.’
‘Blockbuster drugs?’ asked Rachel. She was aware of the phrase but wasn’t certain of its precise definition.
‘A big, popular drug. One that generates at least a billion dollars per annum for the company that creates it. So when any potential blockbuster makes it to human trials, we tend to hear about it.’
Megan stood up and walked over to a coffee machine and poured them both a cup.
‘Rheladrex is a fascinating one, because potentially it’s a licence to print money. Fat inhibitors are one of the holy grails of modern science. We’ve got a soaring obesity problem in the USA; it’s tripled in the last thirty years. But more to the point, weight loss is the number one obsession of at least half of the US population.’
‘Not only over here,’ smiled Rachel. ‘Name me a woman who isn’t on some sort of diet most of the time.’
‘Exactly. So whoever cracks the code will be an instant billionaire. It’s no surprise that every drug company on earth has tried to come up with something that works. I can name several companies that tried and failed – all of them filed for Chapter 7 liquidation.’
‘So there’s nothing like it on the market?’
‘There’s lots of anti-obesity medication out there. But no magic-bullet pill for weight loss, no.’
‘And is Rheladrex it?’
Megan shrugged. ‘Potentially. The trials showed incredible weight-loss results. It’s very new to the market so we’ve yet to see if it catches fire. Denver Group’s chemicals division isn’t a huge global player like Pfizer or Glaxo, but if they market it properly, if they manage to make this work, well . . .’ she held her hands up, ‘the sky’s the limit.’
Rachel thought for a moment. She wasn’t sure how much she could tell this woman. She needed to find out what she could about the drug and Denver’s chemical operation, but at the same time she didn’t want to alert a pharmaceutical watchdog group to something that might implicate Denver – and Julian in particular – in another scandal, especially as she currently had no idea of the facts.
‘Did someone called Madison Kopek ever approach you?’ she asked carefully.
‘No. Who’s she?’ asked Megan, writing down the name.
‘Her brother was taking Rheladrex and died of a heart attack. She was convinced the drug was to blame and was trying to find a way to get to Denver.’
Megan Hill looked at Rachel for a moment, sipping her coffee.
‘Do you have Miss Kopek’s contact details? I’d love to talk to her.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘When . . . how . . .’ She tailed off. Rachel could see that she had the reporter’s instinct and was no doubt asking similar questions in her head as were going through Rachel’s own.