The Era of Dementia Cures
The Era of Dementia Cures
Winter break of my third year in middle school.
It was an age where everyone was nervous, having the mindset that they had to go to high school. It was 2010... and given the social atmosphere, deviation was not permitted for high school students.
There was a mindset that it was okay to play around until elementary and middle school, but things were different once you entered high school. To get into a good university, you had to spend three years fruitfully: managing your school records for early admissions, participating in various extracurricular activities, and so on.
I used to think that way too.
"Hoo..."
I pressed my face against the transparent wall.
Earth was visible right before my eyes. Unless you went on a spaceship, it was impossible to see the Earth like this in person. At best, you'd only see photos or videos.
"Wow... it's so pretty."
Space was a mysterious and scary place. If a perfectly healthy person were thrown into space with their bare body, they would die instantly... but despite that, space had a strange charm to it.
I came to this Medical Ship first thing after waking up at home. Just watching space from here blew any decent hobby out of the water. It wasn't for nothing that some people wanted to go out into space.
Though, having watched it for an entire month, I was getting a little tired of it.
"Jaeseong-nim. Are you not going to high school?"
"Nope."
After discovering this Medical Ship, the thought of going to high school completely vanished. Was it really necessary to stay at school for 14 hours, even doing night self-study? That was such a waste of time.
It was easy to make a killing with the technology on this Medical Ship. From the moment I escaped the chains of having to make a living, I felt an overwhelming sense of liberation. They say the desire for self-actualization arises once your livelihood is taken care of, and that was spot on.
Studying at high school felt trivial and futile. It seemed much more fun to watch the pharmaceutical company Soyeon was running right now.
And isn't the reason people want to go to a good university just to get a job at a good major corporation? I had absolutely no need for that.
Jaeseong Bio had already invented a dementia cure. If you could cure dementia, which was close to an incurable disease, how much money could you make? I asked Soyeon.
"You said the money we could make from the dementia cure is in the trillions, right?"
"Yes. There are 1 million dementia patients in Korea alone, and over 50 million worldwide. If we sell the medicine to those patients, we can sufficiently expect revenue in the trillions."
"That's a lot..."
It was a much higher number of dementia patients than I expected. And it was a much higher revenue. Considering that the average person dies without even saving up 1 billion won in cash in their lifetime, money in the trillions was just a unit with a completely different concept.
If you put it in the bank, the interest alone would be tens of billions. Considering the consumption level of an ordinary citizen like me, I wouldn't even be able to touch the principal even if I spent it for the rest of my life. The accumulating interest alone was enough to live on. Therefore, the reason to go to school and study hard had disappeared.
With this money, I could live in luxury for the rest of my life and still have plenty left over.
However, I asked Soyeon something I was curious about.
"By the way, do they have to keep taking the dementia cure consistently to be cured in the future?"
According to Soyeon, the dementia cure Jaeseong Bio created now had to be taken consistently to see effects. Just like blood pressure medication. Wouldn't that be annoying? It wasn't difficult to take one pill a day, but that didn't mean I couldn't help but be concerned.
It wasn't like you took it for a month or anything. She said you had to take it for the rest of your life until you died.
She said if you stopped taking the medicine in the middle, the disease would recur.
Was it impossible to cure dementia perfectly even with future technology? But after hearing my words, Soyeon said calmly.
"That is not the case, Jaeseong-nim. One dose of the medicine is enough to cure it."
"Really? Then why didn't you make it that way?"
I asked with my eyes wide open. Soyeon answered my question in a quiet, composed voice.
"Because if it were cured with a single dose of medicine, the revenue source would decrease."
"Ah...!"
I could understand what Soyeon was saying.
If you were cured after taking the medicine once, there would be no reason to take dementia medicine anymore.
That meant the medicine that could be sold to 50 million dementia patients was limited to 50 million units. But if they had to take one pill a day consistently like blood pressure medication, as Soyeon planned?
50 million pills a day... 1.5 billion pills a month. Almost 18 billion pills a year. The volume of sales itself was different.
In the case of South Korea, considering the current birth rate, they say that half the population will be senior citizens over 65 in 50 years. Considering that dementia mainly affects the elderly, the number of consumers would only increase, never decrease.
As we enter an aging society, the proportion of the elderly has increased.
"So, you're saying it's better to sell a lot cheaply than to sell it once at a high price?"
"That is correct, Jaeseong-nim. It is fully possible to cure it with future technology, but... to become the world's #1 company as you wish, consistent revenue is essential."
"That's amazing..."
Future technology was indeed the best. By the way, the functions of this spaceship were becoming scary.
Even though most of its functions were unusable right now, if it had this much capability... if all functions were available, couldn't it do things that would make your skin crawl?
Not only resurrecting the dead, but even the ultimate goal of humanity I mentioned before: immortality.
Maybe because Soyeon said it was fully possible, I became even more afraid. And on the other hand, I was expectant. It meant I could monopolize this science-fiction technology all by myself.
I had absolutely no intention of sharing these technologies with others easily. I might share the cure, but I had to be the only one who knew about the technologies beyond that.
If it were known, tremendous chaos would follow. The only fortunate thing was that I was the only one who knew about the existence of this spaceship, and it could be called a secret that would never be revealed as long as I didn't do anything strange.
------------------------------------------
Korea University Hospital was shocked by the results of the dementia cure clinical trials.
Moreover, they didn't even expect this clinical trial to go well. The first week was practically left neglected.
However, effects started to show from the second week, and Korea University Hospital also sent medical staff to thoroughly collect clinical trial data. That was how the clinical trial ended.
Among the people who participated in the clinical trial, there was someone who was close with a reporter.
There was no need to hide this good news. Rather, they had to promote it with all sorts of flowery language. It was still in the clinical trial stage. It would take a long time for this dementia cure to be released. However, the people who participated in the clinical trial were on edge.
They couldn't go back to the way things were. They couldn't watch their parents become beasts again.
Since this dementia cure had to be taken consistently like a lifelong disease even after the treatment was complete. They said if you didn't take it, the dementia would recur.
Of course, that was nothing compared to the fact that the dementia was being cured. Taking one pill every single day? It was much better than nursing someone with dementia. No, there was simply no comparison.
So, they had to let the world know so that this medicine could be sold on the market quickly.
One man who participated in the clinical trial called a reporter, showed them his parents, and did a long interview.
The reporter didn't believe it at first either. But he had seen the man's parents who had dementia. The appearance of the parents he was showing now was that of normal people. It was different from back then, when they would just lie in bed and moan.
And other people who participated in the clinical trial also agreed to be interviewed.
There was no way the news wouldn't spread.
[Dementia Cure Development Success... Possibility of Cognitive Function Recovery Confirmed]
[The Era of Dementia Cures Has Opened... A Cure That Recovers Memories Appears]
[Lost Memories Have Returned. The Dementia Treatment Revolution Begins]
[Memories Restored. Dementia Cure Development Success]
[Mom Called My Name... The Miracle of the Dementia Cure]
[Breaking News] The Era of Dementia Cures Opens... Innovative Cure Development Success
[The path to conquering dementia, which has plagued the world for a long time, finally shows signs of opening. It is speculated that the pharmaceutical company Jaeseong Bio has developed a new concept treatment that fundamentally blocks the progression of dementia and even restores damaged memory functions. There were also testimonies from several participants who took part in the clinical trial.
According to an anonymous source at Jaeseong Bio... this treatment focused on memory recovery rather than simple symptom relief. Existing dementia treatments only slowed the progression of the disease, but Jaeseong Bio's dementia cure is known to reconstruct the connections of damaged nerve cells and return brain function to near-normal levels.]
An unexpected bomb dropped on South Korea. And it was a massive nuclear bomb at that.