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在我來公司前，都是我的老板自己來出席這個會議。當時他的手下有將近10 個人。可是他說他就是要等我這個剛從學校畢業的乳客來接這個方案。他認為剛畢業出來的學生，具有較強的化學基本常識。有了這些基本常識，稍微提醒一下，就應該解決問題的。其實，對組裏麵那些老美，一個個虎視眈眈，看著我這個老板空降而來。說實在話，我的老板那時也未必能指使動這些野心勃勃的手下。緊接著，我就是不斷的做實驗，印證我的解決方案的重複性。大概又花了兩個月的時間，我的老板要我在一次例行的會議上宣布結果。這次他特地陪我出席。其實，當我報告完畢時，大家的反應極其平靜。沒有一句“扛鍋瑞蹄累訓”。對我這個剛從學校畢業出來的年輕人說來很失望。我的老板安慰我，說我做的很好。不過，他也加上一句，這也是公司對你預計到的期望（就是 Meet Expectation）。他的意思是這是你分內應該完成的，不然我們幹嘛雇你來啊。我的看法是老美覺得很沒麵子，一個案子拖了四年，被我這個初出茅廬的老中，一下子就給了了。如果是老美完成了，那個場麵絕對是轟轟烈烈的。以後幾年，看到一些我認為很平常的工作結束時，那些老美都是把自己吹得像個神仙似的。再加上旁邊的吧弟起哄。然後緊跟著就是升級，加薪。好像剛從月球回來的一樣。
緊接著，我的老板要我把整個的解決方案轉告給先前的負責人。我約訂了時間，就一五一十的把如何解決問題的過程，向這兩位資深的同僚解說了。他們的反應也是非常冷淡。 其實後來想想，實在沒有必要去走這一招。這已經不是他們的問題了，他們才不在乎你做出來沒有。在工業界上班，就是這樣。這個工作是你的，你就全權負責。不是你的，少去插秧。你做出來，你行，你罩得住。你來告訴我，是表示我們不如你了。這是他們的想法。其實，當我在向他們報告時，我是奉命行事。我就是再低調，也難免觸動老美的優越感而使他們受到些許的傷害。這個談話，後來變成了老板對我年終考核的一個批評。他告訴我，有人傳話給他，認為我有點驕傲。我聽了之後，笑了一笑對他說，是嗎？我是很為自己能解決這個問題而驕傲的。另外，我順水推舟的加上一句，我之所以這麽快解決問題，也就是活用了老板要我注意的“化學平衡”啊（這就是拍馬屁）。他笑了笑，不再多言。當然，這個評論隻是口頭上的提醒罷了。現在想起來，如果故事重演，怎麽樣我都會找借口不去向那兩位老美報告我的結果的。
這個問題解決後，老板要我立刻申請專利。我找到了公司的專利律師。全部細節都一一呈上去。最後要我們去簽名時，我發現我的老板居然是第一作者。我當時並沒有說話，但是我知道，我的表情使我們那位加入公司不久的專利律師倒先開口了。他居然說，排名是按照姓氏的字母排列。我的老板居然不開口。我心想，我是個新進的員工，實在不好和我的老板去爭這個排名。說實在話，我的老板那時手上已經有了許多專利，實在不應該與我來爭這個排名。再說，這個案子，除了他很詳細的為我介紹整個要解決的問題外，技術上都是我一個人解決的。這就是老美一般占人便宜的典型寫照。一年以後，我的另外一個專利又出來了。這次，我特地交待那位律師，我是第一作者。大家對過去的排名，彼此心裏有數（就是欺負我們老中），就不提了。最後，簽名的時候，我是第一作者。這口氣我算是出了。多少年後，我到南加州的一家有名的生物遺傳公司訪友，得知這位專利律師，居然是他們公司法律部門的頭子，住在山頂上過著頂天立地的日子。
It is quite difficult to get IPO for biotek company now. If you don't have convincing solid phase II clinical trial data, there is no way you can have IPO. My former company in SH is truly exceptional and involving money games. This is not the first time. There was another drug company in HK went to public in HK and lost all the stock value eventually. But the IPO, they reap about 200 million. Good enough for the game they were playing. They know that game can not be duplicated again in HK, so they moved to oversea. When I have a chance, I will write a book to detail the whole pharmacutical development they are doing to make money without doing phamaceutical. Thank you for your reading and comments.
這個問題就是我當年的問題。我花了10年的時間終於搬到加州來了。我覺得，加州比較開放。而且對員工的保護也比較周全。我覺得，自己首先要有表現，但是該據理力爭的時候，不要衝動，把自己的立場講清楚。我們在加州就是把事件記錄下來。以後我會在我的文中提到一些我碰到的情形。我想我們的下一代，因為他們在語言上，在文化上，都不會允許白人歧視的。這點，可以放心。我的兩個孩子都是律師，他們就不認為在工作場合有這種歧視的事情發生。對於年青的朋友，我的勸告是把英文加強再加強。如果像我一樣，繼續在美國混下去，隻有把英文弄好，另外就是多去了解美國的風土人情，看看美國報紙雜誌等等。盡量加入他們的談話，活動。自然而然，讓他們覺得我們絕不比他們差。到了這個地步，我想就像我們的下一代，他們敢歧視嗎？我們不歧視他們，就算他們祖上積德了。謝謝瀏覽及評論。
Thank you very much for your comments. I did manage to go to NIH webisite and found out one hebal mixture for RA. I am not getting into details of our discussion. Basically, my point of view is to understand the herbal mixture completely, namely the composition before moving into the clinical trials. That will be a very prolong and tedious jobs but not difficult. As far as I know, none of the clinical trials on hebal mixture has ted to FDA for clearance of clinical trial from industry (academic research IND is much easier to get FDA clearance). In this context, my concern for NIH clinical supply is the dosage preparation reproducibility and quality control of raw materials and final product. I mentioned in my earlier comment about the bioavailability of herbal medicine. We have to address this issue first before moving into clinical trials. If we cannot work out the formualation to get desired bioavailability, it will be a waste of all the resources to pursue the therapeutic efficacy.
For pharmaceutical development in China, it is chaos right now. We can see a lot of CRO setting up in China now. I am not sure we are thinking of pharmaceutical development. My approach will be to start API business first, to get DMF filing in US and marketing API in US. The next step will be generic drug and then moving into new drug development. The first two steps will build up credibility in front of FDA, establish financial strength, and use our extra resources to develop new therapeutics like herbal mixture or single hebal etc. It is not easy to convince the people in China. All what they are doing there is to seek wealth on a short term basis. Forget about the good drug, all what they are doing is marketing the medicine into hospital or distribtor to make money quickly. I am not sure you can do anything about it. Thank you very much for your comments and continuing reading.
But this is how most of the biotechs work, unfortunately: get one technology/molecule/patent, put some money in, register in FDA for IND, up to Phase II to show its efficacy if yes then out-license to big pharma, most of the company senior people can divest their stock shares to this timepoint and will be able to pack up and leave. This is the typical lifecycle of a startup biotech company.
這種事可能在大部分中國人身上都發生過，現在我想問的是我們該怎麽辦，我們該怎樣在美國爭取利益和尊重？最根本的是沒有人在上麵支持，撐腰。無論是政治還是學術，我們高層的人可能還不夠strong , 就是有中國老板，對國人的壓榨更甚於洋人。我們的第二代，第三代華裔有沒有受到歧視，到哪裏去了？他們是否有義務幫助第一代，象猶太人那樣？我覺得我們應該培養，推舉華人到美國高層，由他們再提攜後人，我們的後代不能去中國化，要有民族榮譽感，為華裔社會服務。
The problem of health care in china is far more complicated than producing effective drugs. That is of course my personal view. The producing of effective drug is perhaps the second step to take after the government (let's live in hope) can sort out the ideological issue on public health. That is, it is the state's responsibility to give its people good health, like most of the European countries and in Australia and New Zealand. I am not sure about American, whether it is via the insurance company or state subsides. The primary role of public hospitals is to cure patients (with the government pays the bills), not the tool for someone (Foreign pharmaceutical companies or the joint-adventures, and various levels of administrations) to squeeze money out of the miserable patients. It comes more direct, as a matter of fact, the majority of the general public can not afford for being sick. This is a systematic problem to be addressed urgently.
About the effectiveness of traditional Chinese medicine, there are two more reasons which may explain why the conclusion drawn from the literature is always negative. For a start, there is an issue how the test of efficiency was run, and whether the same test is really suitable for testing the effective of Chinese medicine, given the mechanisms behind can be quite different. As most people noticed, the Chinese medicine has the focus on curing the root of problem, instead of the symptoms. Thus, the observation time can be a lot longer for testing the Chinese medicine. The other reason is, there is also the slight chance the only paper which had passed the boring peer-review may be the ones only with the negative effects. This selective process in publications is common in other areas of science where the reviewers have certain bias.
By the way, is it the case in American that even the technical solutions are made during the employment time, the individuals can still claim for patents. The company who pays for the time of the employee has not right in this matter? That is interesting.
My point is, why waste resources on unproven "medicine"? Do we bear the responsibility to educate general population and Chinese administration to re-direct their resources and improve the nation's heath care?
My other ambition is to drive Amway out of China, sort of. It is ourageous to see Amway selling expensive Magnesium, Selenium etc etc to healthy people without proven benefits. Lots of trials show little benefits and toxicity of supplements. Amway basically is dead in the US and somehow make it big in China, pretty much like your boss, taking advantage of the lack of knowledge or ignorance of Chinese people.
I still believe the future of Chinese medicine relies on the active ingradients it contains. Ephedrine, vincristine were all extracted from plants.
My personal bias, the Shanghai work is doomed. I can almost bet it will not produce any drug approved by the FDA to market in the US. If it produces any drug that I can write on my preion, let me know and I send you a gift of your choice within $200. All they are doing is for marketing in China. Everything will sell well with an American flag in China.
Thank you very much for your reading and comments. Here are my answers to your questions.
A few random thoughts. I don't see a future for the Chinese herbal medince. All NIH (national institute of health) sponsored clinical trials are negative. Maybe the only way out for Chinese medicine is to identify an active ingradient.
There are several issues to be considered here. All the NIH clinical trials, I believe, is the single molecules derived from herbals. The identification of the active ingredient is not a problem at all and we are doing in China now. The question is whether the single molecule is sufficient to provide the desired efficacy as observed in the Fu Fang (複方). Of course, I do not rule out the possibility to find the efficacy in small molecules. Besides in herbal medicine, when we talked about the single molecule actually is a combination of similar type of compounds (i.e., not a single entity).
I believe the projects you worked in Shanghai was FDA approval for some herbal supplements, but not a "drug".To get FDA approval for a drug, you will need phase 1, 2 and 3 trials with the last 2 clinical and a post market analysis. I think it is a waste of money and resources to spend on herbal medicine with no proven effacacy.
The project is not dietary supplement, it is for therapeutic indications and treatments. For dietary supplement, you don’t have to go through FDA approval process but you do need to have CMC information ready in case that FDA requests the information when an adverse event reported. We all know that the medical response from herbal medicine is slow and this is due to the formulation technology. How many formulation scientists are willing to understand the herbal medicine to increase the bioavailability, none. This is the area we should focus if we really would like herbal medicine to achieve the efficacy as the other drugs.
Another thought, I feel sorry for your boss. She is a loser at least from a personal perspective. Somehow she found her niche to survive in this twisted Chinese society. I think your greatest asset, if you want to contribute to China, probably it is not your skills as a chemist, but the knowledege of American system, either in terms of management or personel evaluation. I think probably you should take a management position in your field instead.
Every company has different goals to accomplish. The reason I decided to join the company is to really pursue the Chinese herbal medicine as they originally promised. Later, I found out all what they are doing was trying to file two USA IND to fulfill the IPO requirement. They had accomplished that. All what they are doing now is just to keep investor happy. The funny thing is they even gave up the herbal medicine and moving into synthetic drugs. There are many returned oversea Chinese companies in China now. The only question I have is how much they had learned from the US companies. Recently C&E News editorial mentioned the rapid pharmaceutical progression in China and hinted that US is currently losing the young talents. We have to ask ourselves, do we really know what we are doing. I always warn myself, I am myself the worst enemy if I don’t know what I don’t know. I am working in this field for almost 30 years and I am still learning things everyday. It never ends. In China, how much time they are willing to spend in update themselves, that is a big question mark.
On a personal level, my dream is to modernize, or westernize if you will, the Chinese health care system. Emergency department need better equipments and training. Pharmaseutical industry needs reform. Chinese medicine need to be excluded from main stream and go to where it belongs, "food category" as in other countries. It is stunning to see a developing country wasting limted resources on unproven "medicine".
At least, I know there are few small private drug companies in China, they are moving very well. They mean to develop good medicine to benefit our beloved people. But the problem is the environment, the sentiment of people surround you. All the people want to make money and make money quickly. They neglect that fact that if you do something right or you have a good product you will make money eventually as well as benefit the people. We need to develop patience, to understand the business, and to change the investment mentality to modernize our pharmaceutical industry. If we don’t, we may be losing the ground to other countries. The API business is a typical example. Most of API used in generic industry today is from India or Europe after they originally imported from China. They bought the API final product from China as raw material and then reprocessed and re-sold to US with a tremendous margin (few cents from China vs.few dollars sold to US). Unfortunately, our government own pharmaceutical companies will not think about any long term project. The private industry like my old company has no idea about how to run the pharmaceutical companies. It is really a very very sad situation there.
Thank you again for your reading and comments.
A few random thoughts. I don't see a future for the Chinese herbal medince. All NIH (national institute of health) sponsored clinical trials are negative. Maybe the only way out for Chinese medicine is to identify an active ingradient. I believe the projects you worked in Shanghai was FDA approval for some herbal supplements, but not a "drug".To get FDA approval for a drug, you will need phase 1, 2 and 3 trials with the last 2 clinical and a post market analysis. I think it is a waste of money and resources to spend on herbal medicine with no proven effacacy.
Another thought, I feel sorry for your boss. She is a loser at least from a personal perspective. Somehow she found her niche to survive in this twisted Chinese society. I think your greatest asset, if you want to contribute to China, probably it is not your skills as a chemist, but the knowledege of American system, either in terms of management or personel evaluation. I think probably you should take a management position in your field instead.
On a personal level, my dream is to modernize, or westernize if you will, the Chinese health care system. Emergency department need better equipments and training. Pharmaseutical industry needs reform. Chinese medicine need to be excluded from main stream and go to where it belongs, "food category" as in other countries. It is stunning to see a developing country wasting limted resources on unproven "medicine".
我時常想，在人家的國家裏，我們要求生存就得將計就計。能夠爭取的盡量爭取。至少我覺得，在美國還是個講理的地方。我在上海兩年最令我失望與震驚的就是我們的海歸分子的狂傲。他們把在國外受的怨氣，一股腦全放在自己的同胞身上。儼然是一個十足的臭老九。所以，您提的香港教授，就不足以為奇了。尤其是廣東人，他們同鄉之間的情誼特重。不像我們山東人，老鄉見老鄉，兩眼淚汪汪，啥都忘了。到了台灣，當地人不也是對大陸人另眼看待。比來比去，我還是寧願呆在美國。至少多少年來，我知道我要的啥。該閉眼的時候，就把眼閉起來。該開口的時候就是，大聲說理。以後我會慢慢的在我文裏介紹。我說過，我們的日子充滿了期望，問題是我們如何去達到我們的期望。取舍之間，就需要我們的智慧了。謝謝您的瀏覽與分享。
看來老毛鄙視臭老九不無道理
謝謝您的美文, 等著看您的下文了
Immigrants do have lots of inherited disadvantages. However, if you can jump from a low energy level to a higher level, much like an electron does, you will be above all the electrons in the lower levels even though you may be in the lower percentile among your level.
My personal belief is do whatever it takes to achieve personal success. Be aware of the racial issue and always stand up for yourself, just like you did for the second patent without making a big deal of race because this problem exists everywhere.