Devetex-----Galactic Pharmaceutical Corporation

[taalismn]

Devetex-----Galactic Pharmaceutical Corporation(HA/CCW)
“Devetex Means Good Health.”

Devetex is an interstellar pharmaceuticals corporation with a long history and high standing. It holds several medical supply contracts with the Human Alliance and CCW governments. Besides providing therapeutic treatments, Devetex also produces less openly available combat drugs and physical enhancements, including longevity drug regimens. They also regularly donate millions of credits in medicine to charity healthcare organizations.
It is also known for a virtually paranoid corporate security culture; fear of corporate espionage keeps the high-board executive officers isolated from invasive scans, especially psychic probes. Devetex maintains that this is necessary to protect the corporation’s proprietary secrets from being stolen and the CEOs of the many important medical divisions from being compromised and their vital work jeopardized.
Devetex has a policy of discovering and promoting hot young talent from low in the ranks to high positions, where they stay for quite some time. The upper echlon live almost as a breed apart, living lavishly in luxury quarters(including some exclusive properties in the Paradise Federation), and taken care of with some of the best private healthcare in the CCW. The few times Devetex executives have gotten ill or injured in public, they’ve been immediately taken care of by their retinue of personal physicians.
Aside from the usual run of accuations and minor scandals that this lifestyle comes at the cost of hiked drug prices, Devetex is considered tobe a ‘clean’ corporation on the up and up.

Of course this can’t be the whole truth.

Some in-depth inquiries will reveal a pattern of reshuffling of newly-promoted executives around the corporation’s holdings away from their previous work, as well as an almost consistant pattern of divorces falling such promotions. The newly promoted also apparently sever almost all contact with their previous colleagues and anybody who might be familiar with them outside a work context. This has been ascribed to the high-pressure, high-level, demands of managing the massive pharmaceutical concern.

The ‘hot young talents’ so promoted are also often not so talented in the eyes of their fellow low-tier colleagues, yet the executive board seems to find and bring out their talent. There are also very few still-living retired senior executives; the rigorous pace of interstellar business tends to burn out Devetex’s upper management at the very last.

Devetex’s nasty secret is that many of its highest-level ‘promotions’ are anything but; the remote executive retreat that sees so many retirements from and promotions to the high board is really a medical laboratory specializing in brain transplants, assisted by Devetex’s advanced pharmaceutical research. Healthy young employees are invited to the retreat and ’promoted’----their brains replaced by those of older and ailing senior executives. This cold-blooded practice has been going on for several centuries, and the Devetex senior executive board has gotten quite good at it, being able to hide it from detection. Though the old minds sometimes find it difficult to adjust to new realities and keep up with the times, there’s enough corporate momentum, good will from clients, and unsuspecting middle management talent to buffer lapses in judgement and gloss over the old habit-born mistakes of the bodysnatchers.

Because of their generations-old practice of murder for immortality, it’s become easier for the Devetex high board to lower their moral standards and engage in other unsavory practices as well. Their slowly growing inner circle and high-paced lives(when they aren’t managing the corporation) means that they are always on the lookout for new bodies. They’ve become inured to other means of life extension, such as genetic modification, cloning or cyborg conversion, preferring instead their face-swapping ways(which incidentally makes Devetex look more like an egalitarian company rather than a family-controlled business, and allows them to avoid certain business laws). It’s not becoming uncommon for inner board members who run into trouble to evade it by conveniently ‘dying’ and moving onto a new identity and body. And as their lives stretch out, they have become addicted to power, at any cost.

The vast majority of Devetex employees are honest and hardworking, and while some may chafe at the distanced relationship with upper management, most are proud to work for the medical company and few suspect anything is rotten in the company(at worst, they’d expect embezzlement or price-padding).

If Devetex were to collapse, it would put hundreds of thousands of employees across dozens of planets out of work, and jeopardize millions, if not potentially billions, of patients at risk. At least until the various divisions are re-organized by new ownership, but the impact will still be great.


A. Product/Services
Medicine---Pharmaceuticals giant, Besides direct manufacture of drugs, Devetex has its hand in many smaller medical supply companies.

B. Ownership
Family -owned, though few outside the inner circle at Devetex know the truth of this.

C. Size/Manpower
12 million

D. Distribution
Galactic Arm---The company has offices and operations throughout an entire ARM of the Corkscrew Galaxy, which can cover several hundred star systems.

E. Communications
Secure----The company has invested heavily in encryption systems and has long-term contracts with high-level bonded courier services.

F. Security
Heavy---A dedicated security force equal to 10% of the employee population, well-trained(at least 6th level of experience) armed and equipped for action, with specialized vehicles, robots, and automated defenses protecing key facilities. Employees have to be registered and pass elaborate biometric sensors between sections. Other assets may include heavily-armed ‘security shuttles’ for the company’s elite security, especially the Inner Board’s personal security retinues.

G. General Alignment
Unprincipled & Scrupulous----The company comports itself with a certain amount of fair-mindedness and fair play, but will take advantage of loopholes in the law to gain small advantage.
The Inner Board, however, has crossed the line from MIscreant to a very twisted Aberrant.

H. Business/Trade Connections
Anybody---The company will deal with anybody, regardless of alignment and ethics clashes. May make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

I. Illegal Activity
Devetex has been suspected of smuggling medical supplies to groups like the Free Worlds Council, which gains them no small amount of credit with the media,
The Inner Board, on the other hand, has been steadily eroding the corporation’s principles from the inside. Besides the kidnapping and murder attendant with their brain-swapping, the IB has been engaging in selling combat and docilation drugs used by mercenaries and slavers

J. Pay
Fair----The company pays its employees about the average for the industry. Benefits vary by rank, but generally every employee gets SOME paid leave time, medical insurance, and severance pay.

K. Benefits
Full Medical---The company offers FULL medical coverage, including regular checkups, catastrophic crisis rehabilitation,and reconstructive treatments.

L. Available Funds
Big Bucks-----The company has massive cash reserves and can make loans/payoffs of several million credits.

M. Reputation
Well-Known---- The company’s name is recognized, its business is known, and most of those who hear the name have an opinion one way or the other about them and their products/services. Devetex is regarded highly in the galactic economies, despite complaints at the personal level about its strict workplace environments.

N. Current Corporate Status
Rising Stock----The company is enjoying a surge in business(70-100% profit) even on average.

Hook, Line and Sinker Adventures:
Devetex can serve as the sponsors of above-board and legitimate expeditions to discover new natural pharmaceuticals, or hire security personnel to escort vital shipments of mdications, in which cases the PCs will likely never come anywhere near an Inner Board member or their machinations, but here are a few situations where they may be drawn into the med-corp’s darker secrets.

Bad RX
There’s a slew in drug-augmented crime in the area where the PCs are; criminals jacked up on performance-enhancement drugs are on a rampage in the sector. The PCs get roped into investigating where the cheap street combat-drugs, which include some side effect-laden new chemicals, are comi ng from.
Their investigations should lead them to a small company supposedly producing the illicit boosters and the company’s greedy operators. Case closed? No, right. Further inspection of the facilities should reveal that the laboratories cannot be producing all of the street drugs in the volumes being sold; they have to be coming from someplace else. The continued investigation should evenetually lead the PCs to a Devetex-owned facility or concern where the PCs find evidence that the pharmaceuticals giant is sourcing the drugs.
If confronted with the evidence, Devetex will quickly launch their own internal investigation, reveal that a ‘rogue ‘ local corporate officer or board member is wholly responsible for corrupting the laboratory, which normally makes drugs for babies(or other innocuous cause) and that the crime was strictly limited to that facility. Whatever public splash the indident made will be quickly dealt with and ultimately played down or hushed up and the responsible corporate officer will shortly thereafter commit suicide in shame or otherwise suffer a fatal accident. Meanswhile, elsewhere in the Devetex organization, a newly-promoted younger employee is being assigned to a new posting far from the scene of the scandal.

Investment Investigation:
The long-lived, potentially immortal, Altess are always on the lookout for good investments, so naturally they’ve sunk some money into Devetex. Thing is, being so long-lived and attentive to their financials, the Altess are in a good position to note trends and habits in business practices over time. Of late, the Altess have noticed some pecularities in the hifg level decision-making at Devetex. Also, though the Altess have never met any Devetex Inner Board members face-to-face, they’ve had enough audio-video teleconferences tp pick up on subtle twerks of speech and body language. Now while this may be explained away as proteges picking up habits from their business mentors, the fact that some of these habits have survived several consecutive generations of executives seems odd. Though Devetex remains a steady solid investment, the Altess are curious about the anomalies they’ve been noticing. They want more information to see if their investment strategies need adjustment.
The PCs have been hired on the sly to get that information. That means getting as close as possible to members of the Devetex Inner Board and getting in scan or psychic probe distance to get some hard data.

Possession is 9/10ths of the Law:
The PCs, who should have a mage or priest among them, are quietly approached by a party interested in hiring their services. They will be generously paid, but only after an ironclad nondisclosure agreement is made. No questions asked beyond what is absolutely necessary to accomplish the job, and no talking about it afterwards. The employers want an exorcism done and over with.
The afflicted party is a Devetex Inner Board member who recently stole the body of a younger employee. Since the transplant, the executive has been followed by a Haunting Entity that has latched onto the memories of the previous owner of the stolen body. The supernatural stalker has been making life increasingly uncomfortable for the executive, including several public manifestations that were almost caight on open media. The executive wants the unwelcome follower GONE before people start taking notice.
If the PCs can get rid of the ghostly stalker quickly and quietly, they can walk away with a nice bundle of cash. If, at any time the PCs might learn of certain uncomfortable truths during the job, or be suspected of learning anything, such as ID’ing the executive, the person in question has no compunctions about having the PCs permanently silenced.

[darthauthor]

I like the idea.


Can you give some ideas for their drugs?

Medicinal?

Combat? or just look at Juicer Uprising?


Longevity?


What limits are there to our creativity?


Cure for cancer?

[taalismn]

Can you give some ideas for their drugs?

Medicinal?

Combat? or just look at Juicer Uprising?


Longevity?


What limits are there to our creativity?


Cure for cancer?

Devetex has dabbled in all of the above.
They started initially as a Human Alliance company serving the needs of humans, and they're spread over at least a galactic arm. So they produce medicines for a variety of illnesses that might be encountered on different worlds, and treat conditions that are caused by different conditions(for instance, there are virally-caused varieties of cancer, and there's toxin-caused cancers, and radiation-promoted cancers, so one cancer cure-all isn't possible, though it's a much sought-after grail of the medical community). They have, however, been expanding into serving other species as well. Increasingly so as the temptation of profit and power leads the Executive Board to expand into new territory. That could be a windfall for stockholders, or a disaster waiting to happen for the company if they overextend themselves.

Longevity? Yes, though they're nowhere near Altess-levels of such, and there's plenty other other ways/species that live longer. But the race is on to create cheaper, more available, more effective longevity treatments with fewer side effects Again, grail-quest.

Combat drugs? Yes, Juicer drugs are a good place to start. But this should be publicly downplayed.

The old Cyberpunk RPG had a good quick cheat system for producing various drugs and narcotics. Anybody with access to that old game can use that for ideas.

Also note that Devetex isn't the only drug.medicine corporation out there. There are many, varying in extent and attitude, from narrow-focus(treating only one illness or group of them), to whatever they can cure, from charitably altruistic to cutthroat-for-profit, damn the side effects. Devetex is simply one of the larger and better known companies, so PCs shouldn't suspect anything wrong with them from the start.

So the specifics of their drugs I leave to the GM, if specifics come int play. Popping a Deverest sleeping pill or analgesic for a hangover should be commonplace and nothing untoward, but discovering a pattern of psychopathic behaviors linked obliquely to a a headache remedy could lead to discovery of shoddy laboratory testing or an accidental crossover of shipments from a covert brain chemistry-modification drug production line.

[darthauthor]

Thanks.

I was looking for some credit prices and

products as to what they can do.

I find it is generally safe to give players a sort of potion of healing so they are back in the game after a mistake.
They pay for it in the expense of loot when the sell and use the proceeds to buy.

[taalismn]

Credit prices could vary by any number of factors...rarity of the condition a treatment is expected to remedy, distance from manufacturer and major distribution hubs(a bottle of aspirin-equivalent that would cost 5 credits on a metro-world could cost 5-6 times or more on a distant colony world).
How about the species being treated? Humans are common , get sick easily, and their physiology is well-documented. Dragons on the other hand, are rarer and almost never get sick, so when one does need medicine, it's more likely to be hard to come by and a lot more expensive.
Distributors can also determine whether the buyer is getting a deal or gouged.
How about if you're paying out of pocket or through a discount club? Or maybe your mercenary contract includes health insurance that discounts medicines?
Ease of manufacture? If the medicine can be churned out in thousand-ton lots by an automated biotech plant using common materials, that can bring the price down. On the other hand, if the anti-inflammatory you're using is made from a plant found only on a single planet deep inside the TransGalactic Empire, and can only be picked by Kreeghor virgins, you may be paying some serious extra out of pocket.
And is there a generic equivalent? That could shave costs for the work-alike, or through forcing competitive pricing with the brand-names.