Hypocrite's Isle

Author’s Note

Although a work of fiction, Hypocrites’ Isle is based on something that happened to me when I was a researcher in microbial genetics. I was working on the genes determining cell shape in the bacterium E. coli, when I stumbled across the reason why an old antibiotic had failed in practice when, in the research lab, it had appeared to have great promise, and had been given an expensive launch by its manufacturer some twenty years before. I also discovered how it could be used to great effect if it were to be combined in a particular way with other drugs. My hope was that this new technique could be used to clear up a persistent, recurrent, urinary tract infection called pyelonephritis. This condition is nearly always caused by E. coli, and affects a great many people across the world, mainly women. Although not fatal, it often becomes chronic, and many women suffer from recurring infections throughout their lives.

I was naïve in thinking that the drug company would be delighted. They didn’t want to know. I was later to discover that the antibiotic in question was out of patent, and the company no longer had the exclusive right to make it. Apart from that, it would have been difficult for them to relaunch a product that had already failed, and sales of their more recently developed drugs would have suffered. A more cynical view put to me at the time was that chronic conditions are big cash cows for the pharmaceutical industry, much more so than any condition they can clear up.

Not happy with the commercial view of things, I approached the university body which acted as an interface between academia and business. They were very excited at first, but became less enthusiastic when they learned that the new treatment did not involve any new compounds: they wanted something they could patent to ‘protect the university’s interests’. They thought that it might be possible to patent the intellectual property of the idea, and this was confirmed by lawyers, but in the end they pulled out, arguing that E. coli was a relatively ‘soft’ pathogen and there were plenty of other drugs available to treat it. I approached my employer at the time, the Medical Research Council, who had a similar body. They informed me that, as I had already told the pharmaceutical company about my findings, it would actually be impossible for them to patent the idea, so they had no further interest.

At no time did anyone think that just curing the disease was a good idea: everyone I approached was primarily concerned with whether or not they could make money. My assertion that I just wanted the idea to be put into practice cast me in the role of an ivory tower academic, who didn’t understand ‘the real world’.