Chapter 10: All Glory to Umbrella (Edited)

In September, Umbrella Corporation acquired Isis Pharmaceuticals for £930,000 and completed the restructuring within the same month.

By mid-October, animal testing was successful, and the Medical Safety Committee issued a clinical trial permit.

At the same time, the standardized industrial production line for Dittany Medicine was completed. The trial run of the first batch of 100 bottles of Dittany Medicine was successfully filled, and the industrial production efficacy was verified.

By the end of October, a temporary license was issued, allowing the drug to go on the market. Patrick immediately launched an overwhelming advertising campaign in almost all mainstream media, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and the BBC.

In early November, the first batch of orders was provided by a few pharmacies that trusted Patrick, totaling 5,000 bottles.

That afternoon, 2,600 bottles of the potion were completed.

At the same time, the raw materials were exhausted.

In the new Isis Pharmaceuticals factory, Patrick looked at the dozens of boxes of Dittany Medicine in front of him, frowning.

"Is this all the raw materials we have?" he asked in disbelief.

Murphy was somewhat embarrassed. He had already bought all the Bai Xian from Diagon Alley and even went twice more to replenish the materials, but he still vastly underestimated the huge productivity difference between industrial production and handcraft workshops.

The materials he had gathered, enough for Diagon Alley for a month or two, were used up in the factory in two hours, even without the machines operating at full capacity.

Compared to the wizarding world, the muggle world was just too vast.

"Can we get more raw materials?" Patrick asked.

"Yes, but it will take time, and it may not be sustainable for a while."

Murphy considered whether to try gathering materials from other countries and wizarding communities.

"The raw materials are so scarce, no wonder such a potent potion, I've never seen it before."

Patrick was somewhat relieved. If it weren't for this, he couldn't understand why such a potion hadn't been discovered by others, but came from a boy without professional pharmaceutical training—how embarrassing for all the pharmaceutical researchers in the world.

"We must find a solution for the raw materials, but the urgent task now is how to complete the orders."

Patrick pondered for a while and said, "Dilute it."

Murphy was startled, "Can we do that?"

Patrick nodded, "That's what we'll do! Currently, each bottle of Dittany Medicine is 30ml, but for treating common small wounds, a few drops are enough, so 30ml is too wasteful."

He continued, as his thoughts became clearer, "In fact, we must dilute it. An ordinary family doesn't have that many injuries. If a bottle of Dittany Medicine lasts for several years, how can we continue to sell our potion?"

"No, dilution is not enough; the effects of Dittany Medicine are too strong, almost no need for continuous medication. So, we'll make it into single-use droplets, sprays, or disposable bandages. We have to sell the medicine by the 'drop'!"

Murphy thought it made sense, but they had already negotiated the price with the customers. Their pricing was already not cheap. Could they still sell it if they reduced the amount?

As for whether this practice of reducing the quantity without reducing the price was somewhat unethical, Murphy didn't have such concerns, mainly worried about sales volume.

"The orders only mention the content, they don't know the potion's component ratio anyway. For this batch of orders, make the potions into bottles, each enough for one or two treatments, then include some single-use potions as a gift."

Patrick's idea became clearer, "Let the pharmacists test it, reserve 0.2 or 0.3 ml of the concentrate per bottle, and dilute the rest with water or alcohol to see the effects."

"These raw materials must be expensive, right?" Patrick asked.

Murphy calculated; he spent about £100,000 on gold, all converted into Galleons, two-thirds of which was used to buy Bai Xian.

Therefore, the cost of these Bai Xian was close to £90,000.

But only more than 2,000 bottles of the potion were produced.

The average cost of each bottle of potion was about £35 just for the raw materials.

That is, around £1.2 per ml cost.

And they set the price for a bottle of Dittany Medicine at only £15.

Previously, Murphy had no concept of how many potions his materials could produce. Now, calculating this way, if they sold the potions at the original volume, he would indeed lose a significant amount.

But following Patrick's method, if each bottle of potion contains only 0.2—0.3 ml of concentrate.

Then the cost per bottle directly drops to below £0.4, even if priced as low as the most competitive £5, he still has more than ten times the profit margin.

Cleverly, such a volume of potion is already completely sufficient.

Even for treating more serious wounds, only two to three drops of Bai Xian essence are needed.
And a drop of potion is approximately 0.05 ml.

0.2—0.3 ml of concentrate is about 4 to 6 drops, enough to treat two serious injuries, which is completely sufficient to meet the needs of an ordinary family.

He roughly described the costs to Patrick, then couldn't help but pat Patrick on the back, "Patrick, you're a genius!"

They discussed various single-use products' applications, positioning, and pricing for a while.

"All single-use products must be individually packaged, and it must be exquisite. The best content needs the best appearance to be recognized."

"Lastly, the most important thing is, each product must have our trademark printed on an appropriate position. The umbrella-shaped logo you drew before, with red and white, is very recognizable and will definitely make a lasting impression."

That's needless to say.

The oppressive feeling of Umbrella Corporation's billions of zombies in a post-apocalyptic wasteland is unmistakable.

Thinking about the streets filled with Umbrella Corporation's logos, Murphy was already a bit worried.

Merlin's beard, they should never touch virus research in the future!
However, Murphy was very supportive of this proposal. The aesthetics of the current Godfather of the business world has already caused a trend in the business community, and Patrick is clearly a fan of the Godfather.

And he indeed possesses many similar traits to his idol.

After discussing, Murphy no longer doubted whether the Dittany Medicine would be accepted by the muggle market.

He took out a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Patrick, "I wanted to give this to you yesterday, 5% of the shares, don't think it's too little, others can't buy it even with five million pounds."

But in Murphy's view, Patrick's role was actually much more useful than Jim's five million pounds.

Patrick took the share certificate with a calm expression.

"How is it, not enough?"

Patrick shook his head, "I just did a quick calculation. With a conservative estimate of a 15 times profit margin, just this order will net us over seventy thousand pounds. And such a shipment volume is less than one-thousandth of London's demand, let alone the whole of the UK, which is less than one ten-thousandth. But given the effects of Dittany Medicine, it is bound to become popular worldwide."

"This 5%, within a year, will be worth billions, and will continue to rise. How could I think it's not enough?"

"It's just that, compared to the glory of bringing such a product to the world with my own hands, billions of pounds seem insignificant."

Murphy was surprised, "I didn't expect you to be an idealist."

But this was not particularly surprising. If Patrick didn't have a bit of idealism, he wouldn't have been recruited by a young lad with nothing in the first place.

"Ha, I think we will make history!" Patrick's eyes shone brightly.

This middle-aged bald man suddenly seemed a bit cute to Murphy.

He laughed, "Since you desire honor and money means nothing to you, then give the shares back to me."

Patrick's face stiffened, and he quickly put the share certificate back.

"I misspoke just now. All glory to Umbrella, to you, boss. I just hitched a ride, what glory, nonsense."

Honor is honor, but one still needs to eat.

Murphy laughed, "Don't worry, no one can take these 5% from you. And in the future, we probably won't only have Dittany Medicine as our product, you probably still underestimate the value of this share."

Patrick suddenly remembered the notebook he showed to Murphy when discussing the experiment steps for Dittany Medicine.

Dittany Medicine was just a page torn off by Murphy.

Perhaps, Murphy had other medicines of Dittany Medicine's caliber in his hands? Maybe three or four? Or even more?

"Whew." Patrick barely managed to suppress the wild thoughts in his heart.

He solemnly placed the certificate in his backpack, thinking about framing it later.

"Thank you for your generosity." This time, Patrick's expression was much more serious.

Murphy smiled, "All glory to Umbrella."

But Patrick looked at Murphy with a somewhat uncomfortable stare, "All glory to the boss!"

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