Stash by David Matthew Klein Page B

could end up with a four-hundred-million-dollar fine like Warner-Lambert?”
    “That’s what we’re here to avoid. Probably not that much, since Zuprone doesn’t have the sales of Neurontin, but the damage to the brand name would be huge—and we would lose our jobs, of course.”
    “There are lots of jobs in the drug industry.”
    That may be true, but Brian didn’t want to relocate and take one of them unless he was down to his last option.
    Teresa pointed out that Caladon would never make as much money on the drug if they kept to the off-label strategy as they would if they got FDA approval.
    Brian said, “We’ll project the numbers and the consequences of either applying for approval or not, add some kind of summary of marketing efforts, then hand it over to Stephen and Jennifer and let the lawyers decide.”
    “You sure you don’t want me to do this? I know you were planning on time off, your family must be waiting for you.”
    “And you have nothing else to do this weekend?”
    “Not really,” Teresa admitted. “I might drive down to New Jersey tomorrow to see my brother.”
    Brian shrugged. “Let’s get started, then I’ll take off. We want to discover, where possible, any correlation between physicians we’ve called on or who have attended our seminars, and the frequency and reason around their prescriptions for Zuprone.”
    He sorted the spreadsheet data by the number of prescriptions written by each physician, then by which physicians attended one of Caladon’s educational seminars on obesity. Although they had hired independent physicians to conduct the events, the seminars could be called into question, given that Caladon paid doctors to attend and hosted them in Marco Island, Las Vegas, Steamboat Springs, and other resorts.
    When Brian mentioned a physician’s name from the seminar list, Teresa flipped through the paper copies of follow-up surveys they’d gotten back from seminar attendees. It was the only way to correlate physician to prescription indication—whether it was written for weight loss or anxiety—and at what rate physicians who attended the seminars wrote Zuprone prescriptions for weight loss. Only about a third of the attendees had completed surveys, enough to provide general direction perhaps but not to be statistically relevant.
    When finished with the surveys, they would look at data from the sales reps about which physicians requested copies of Caladon’s internal studies on Zuprone and which HMOs and health plans included Zuprone on their drug plan formularies.
    Teresa sat close to him, sharing the space beneath the desk where one pair of legs belonged. Too close. Their knees touched a few times. Then elbows. Each time Brian edged back. Then Teresa leaned forward to point at something on his screen, and Brian felt her breast touch his arm. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t look. But he knew what breasts felt like pressed against him. He considered moving around to the side of his desk to avoid a second occurrence.As he debated this prudish—or prudent—move, his phone rang, Gwen calling.
    “How’s it going?”
    “Fine, I said I’d call when I was finished.” What a radar on that woman.
    “I’m just asking—don’t be angry.”
    “Sorry, I’m just trying to get it done.”
    “You can take your time, I’ve decided we’re not going.”
    “Why? I thought your appointment wasn’t until Tuesday night.”
    “Appointment?” Gwen said. “Is someone in your office?”
    “No, it’s just …” Why was he lying? Gwen knew he worked with Teresa, and she had met her once at the holiday party when Teresa first moved up to New York. Gwen had liked her well enough and seemed to classify her as nonthreatening, for the same reasons Brian had.
    But Gwen hadn’t seen Teresa since then.
    “Why did you change your mind about the lake?” Brian asked.
    “I’m going to the funeral.”
    “What funeral?”
    “James Anderson,” Gwen said. “It’s Monday morning. We’d