He was surprised. “Thanks for letting me be a part of it. It’s changed my life.”You have no idea how much.
“Your online following too, isn’t that right?”
“Sorry?”
“It was our chief science officer, Dr. Smith, who brought it to our attention. He sends his apologies for not joining today, by the way.” The others smirked, as if amused by the idea of the enigmatic Dr. Smith in the flesh. “Dr. Smith’s taken a special interest in you. He hand-selected you to participate in the trial, did you know that?”
“Hand-selected me?” Emmett said. “Why—?”
“He’s been monitoring your progress online and has been extremely impressed. How many followers do you have now?”
“Almost forty thousand,” Emmett said, distracted by one of his favorite topics. “Picked up quite a few after my wobble, actually.”
“Wow,” Cohrs muttered.
“I’m one of them,” Pamela said.
“Me too,” added Rachael, “and—all right if I jump in, Jenni?”
“Please.”
The young communications expert addressed Emmett, ebullient. “I’ve been following you on Instagram since Dr. Smith told us about your account, and I’m justin lovewith your content. You’re so talented. The amount of engagement you’ve been able to generate in such a short space of time is next level. Usually it takes years to build up an audience like that.”
“I’m sure it’s just the effects of the Obexity,” Emmett said.
“I don’t this so, I think it’s you. How real you are. Sooo many people struggle with their weight, and you’ve never shied away from that struggle. To see you blossom like you have over the last few months, it’s inspiring, even to people who aren’t, uh—” She faltered. “What I mean is—”
“What is this about, exactly?” Emmett said.
Rachael looked to her superiors for support.
“I’ll go,” said Donald Cohrs, a curt suited man with disheveled hair. “Now, I don’t know shit about PR or social media. My job is to make sure our products are in compliance with state and federal regulatory requirements and to oversee the FDA approval process. Unfortunately, the results of the Phase One Obexity trial raised some eyebrows in the federal government—”
“Just a couple of anomalies that we’ve since addressed,” Saito clarified. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Well, they’re still giving us a hard time,” continued Cohrs. “Because of that, there’s a chance our application won’t be approved. No FDA approval—”
“No Obexity,” Emmett finished.
“You get it. We’re taking a proactive approach, leveraging our political connections to change the rules around consumer safety—”
“What we mean is,” interjected Saito with a hint of impatience, “we’re trying to get the FDA to consider the long-term health benefits of a product when reviewing application data that may be anomalous or inconclusive. We strongly believe that the sooner we get this product to market, the sooner we can start saving lives.”
“Where do I come in?” Emmett asked.
“You see, the FDA has an obligation to consider public input on any proposed rule changes,” Saito said. “In fact, it’s often the deciding factor.”
“So you want me to, what, write them a letter? Tell them the drug is safe?”
Pamela answered, a stunningly beautiful Black woman with toned arms and pin-straight, steel-gray hair. “When the call comes for public comment, we hope you’ll raise your voice. But that might be a while yet. What we’d like to do is get ahead of all that by generating excitement for Obexity, putting pressure on the FDA to approve. As one of our most successful trial participants, with a passionate and growing online following, we think you’d make an incredible spokesperson for the product.”
“You mean…”
“We want you to be the face of Obexity.”
Emmett didn’t know what to think. “What about my NDA?”
“We’ll fix that,” Saito said. “We just ask for your continued discretion until the partnership is formally announced.”
