Tenjin and TenGene
When TenBa Was Looking For a Cleric Equivalent To a Wizard With a Spell Book
This is episode 4 of The French Tech Comedy, Season 2
Episode 1 of Season 2: Your DNA Will See (and Mutate) Your Credit Card Now
Episode 2 of Season 2: The Bitcoin That Pulled the Double Helix Apart
Episode 3 of Season 2: Kabuki Theatre and Desktop Epigenetics
For Season 1 of The French Tech Comedy (all episodes), see here.
Previously in The French Tech Comedy: In Season 2 of The French Tech Comedy, we follow characters like Japanese oncologist and bioinformatics engineer Takafumi Nagato, who is leading the lab of Bioinformatics for personalised CAR-T-therapies in a Tokyo clinic, and his patient, Chinese giant TenBa’s founder Ken Ba, a zillionaire from Shanghai. Yuki, Taka’s sister, is a French-speaking geisha, meaning “artist” in Japanese, in touch with the French Tech. She just got married to a French engineer who was working in Taka’s lab, Nono, and has secretly donated her healthy T-cells to Taka’s patient who, after his second cancer relapse, decided to try an innovative treatment called “liquid biopsy”. Indeed, Ba is becoming an expert in genomic precision medicine. In his case it is a matter of life or death. Among Yuki’s friends in the French Tech branch is Frederic Mougin, a biologist, founder of the startup Gene-i-us:
“We are developing a patient-centric tool for patients to collect, share & monetize their medical, genomics, lifestyle, IoT data with academics & pharma industry.”
Yuki had promised she would introduce Mougin to people working with Facebook Singapore; among them: Nono. What biz plan can Gene-i-usimplement, in order to work with Facebook? Mougin is using a lot of buzz words, but when it turns out Ba’s cancer mutation has entered the stock exchange market, thanks to the efforts of a pharmaceutical company, his oncologist, Taka, fears a Ba Gate. More than ever, the privacy of genetic data is instrumental in the process of developing precision medicine. Singapore is the Chinese Mecca of I.P. and patents. A cryptocurrency, that is seen by financial specialists as a security, is used as a way to reward (healthy and sick) patients in exchange of their DNA data. Yuki is wondering if this kind of money will revolutionise the whole financial and pharmaceutical market as we know it, or will all digital currencies end up behaving like any other tradable financial asset? After all, a security is a tradable financial asset. Ba, Taka’s cancer patient, is trying to gain insight into the situation…
Ba is spending a few days (a short getaway) in the middle of nowhere: Ipoh, State of Perak, Malaysia. Actress Michelle Yeoh’s parents still run a “famous” restaurant there. Ba is with one of his friends, the youngest son of Malaysia’s favorite tycoon Robert Kuok.
Ba thought there were interesting facts in the new Kuok book about the way “Malaysia’s Sugar King” Robert Kuok entered the market of edible oil in China. Edible oil and direct-to-consumer genetics were both a business, right?
“According to data collected in 2012, Yihai Kerry (Kuok Group) sold a total of 5.2 billion bottles of cooking oil in the past 20 years and if we were to arrange all these bottles end-to-end in a line, they would take up the total length of 183 Great Wall of China!” (p. 80).
There were 6 billion letters of DNA in each of us. “6 billion bits of data about me, me, me!,” as they say in the US. Arranging the data end-to-end in a line would take up the total length of 183 antiquated Great Wall of Medicine.
TenBa was now looking into options to develop its direct-to-consumer health market, as payment in China had gone 100% digital. Chinese giant TenBa’s founder Ken Ba had to find a way to enter the Chinese business market, with precision medicine as a new product. Decades earlier, Robert Kuok had to enter the Chinese business market, too — with edible oil as a new product.
The Kuok family were looking for a buyer for the Kuok cinema business under Golden Screen Cinemas Sdn Bhd, in a deal worth about US$500 million. Golden Screen Cinemas is Malaysia’s largest movie theater chain with 345 digital screens in Malaysia and Vietnam. Ba had been asked by one of TenBa’s startup companies, working in direct-to-consumer genetics, to look into this movie business. Genomic entertainment. Wasn’t a thing now, but who knew? Ba wanted to start with the direct-to-consumer genetics business, though. He had made an appointment with Michelle who was visiting her old parents in her hometown, and they had arranged to meet at the Majestic Ipoh swimming pool, just after breakfast.
It is 9:00 am in the morning on a Tuesday. Ba and Michelle are alone in the pool, at the edge of the world, or so it seems…
Michelle was in a bad mood, as her morning coffee had not been the usual Italian kind, but the local, and “famous” Old Town White Coffee. The coffee beans are roasted with palm oil margarine, and the resulting coffee is served with condensed milk. Her mom’s favorite.
To top it all (she had just learned over bad coffee that her dad had shingles), her niece wanted to study in Europe, instead of Australia where her sister and cousins were finishing their sophomore year, while the eldest cousin was looking for a post-doc opportunity in a New Zealand or Sydney lab. No. Simone had decided she wanted to go to Paris instead. Studying marketing in Paris?! Michelle thought that sounded like a bad plan. The French capital was great for vacation, and cheese, and cultural stuff, and cuisine; not for business. When Ba arrived at the pool, she was already there, and having a conversation with her niece on WhatsApp. Michelle said US was the place to study, if Simone didn’t want to go to Australia. The girl wanted to work in healthcare. Talking of snake oil:
The US had one of the most expensive and one of the worst existing health care system in the world. Ba wanted to make sure TenBa would learn from America’s mistakes.
Michelle’s niece was a fan of the Japanese anime ReCreators. Learning that her auntie was with Ba, she said:
“ — So TenBa is looking for a cleric equivalent to a wizard with a spell book, like Meteora Österreich.”
“ — If you’re selling your genetic info for a new cryptocurrency, who is buying?,” asked Michelle.
“ — TenBa,” answered Simone. She continued:
“ — Cryptocurrency plus DNA in the TenBa group equals TenGene. It’s my new app. A tool for patients to collect, share & monetise their medical, genomics, lifestyle, IoT data with academics & TenBa. Oh, and by the way,” she added:
“ — If you want to go into the business of direct to consumer genetics in Asia, start with building a strong network & team up with AEON Group, Jusco, you said? Can also just slap an ad or two in the Tokyo Metro. That, plus the TenGene app. Like we’re in ReCreators, you know?”
Ba knew that his Japanese oncologist Taka, and his lab, were behind the GeneLife ad. The startup had already organised a few pitching sessions with TenBa at the Fukuoka Tenjin Center Building. Tenjin and TenGene. Small world. Fukuoka is Kyushu’s largest and one of Japan’s ten most populated cities. That Tenjin building in Fukuoka was also the place where Yuki, Taka’s sister, was working on and off, as a ballet teacher. Yuki, who had donated her healthy T-cells to Ba. Maybe the Tenjin, sorry, TenGene app, could be a useful tool for them? Tenjin was the kami (one of the Shinto deities) of scholarship and learning. Since we only know something like two percent of the human genome, what it codes for, what it does, there was still a lot that needed to be learned. The Tenjin name did make some sense.
“ — Where did you say your niece was going to school, already?” asked Ba.
“ — Singapore, senior high school,” answered Michelle:
“ — It’s only a one-hour-flight to Ipoh, so Simone is coming back home every weekend.” Ba was listening to the conversation and he was having fun.
Simone was saying that the French were the Soviet people of the 2.0 society and economy.
“ — Can you explain why?,” asked Michelle.
“ — First: Innovation — all that is being invented in the capitalist countries in the 60s and 70s is found in the form of ersatz in the Soviet Union. As a reminder, the Concordski plane crashed like some piece of shit. The Europeans are the dumbfounded GAFAM (Google Apple Facebook Amazon Microsoft) customers which they try without success to copy but they understand nothing.
Second: Finance — the Cold War was lost with the Bretton Woods agreements in 1944. The dollar became the world’s reference currency and Bretton Woods gave birth to institutions that governed global trade for the benefit of US banks: IMF, WTO, GATT. The Americans created value and the Soviets scarcity. In France it is believed that work is an available stock that can be distributed and Europe does not adopt any means of sovereignty. Nobody understands algorithmic crypto-currencies (blockchain). The euro will look like the ruble fast enough. GAFAM and BATX hold global value creation and bitcoin will become the usage and reference currency of the digital applications economy. The signal will come from China when it stops buying US debt to impose its cryptocurrency, which is already ready.
Third: Mentalities — the French are captive clients of the GAFAM as the Soviets were clients of the capitalist countries. Their society is frozen in deadly doctrines and neglect. GAFAM and BATX invent a world that they use but that they do not understand.” (*)
“ — Did you learn about this at school?,” Ba asked Simone.
“ — No. It’s more like it’s my own point of view, really.”
“ — But you sound even more critical about Europe than your aunt. So, how come you want to go to Paris for your studies?”
“ — Opportunities exist in crisis,” answered Simone.
(*) Source: Henri Le Roy, Facebook, January 7, 2018
Catherine Coste
MITx 7.00x, 7.QBWx, 7.28x1–2 certified
Member of the Walking Gallery of Health Care, founded by US activist Regina Holliday
