Pharma at the movies

EPM looks at the vital – and sometimes overlooked – role that pharma has played in some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters

Spoiler Alert! We are including entire film synopses in this list.

Lucy

Lucy is tricked into being a drug mule and has a bag of drugs, CPH4, sewn into her abdomen. The bag splits and the drug is release into her system which forces her to evolve. She acquires increasingly enhanced physical and mental capabilities, such as telepathy, telekinesis, mental time travel, and the ability not to feel pain or other discomforts.

She evolves so quickly that she has to take more of the CPH4 drug in order to avoid disintegrating. Her body begins to metamorphose into a bizarre black substance which behaves like nanites, and she transforms these into an unconventionally shaped, next generation supercomputer.

The drug makes Lucy reach 100% of her cerebral capacity and she disappears within the spacetime continuum. Only her clothes and the black supercomputer are left behind.

Limitless        

Eddie Morra takes a new ‘smart drug’, NZT-48, designed by a pharmaceutical company. After taking the drug, Eddie finds himself able to learn and analyse at a superhuman rate and recall memories from his distant past. The only apparent side effect is that Eddie's irides change colour while on the drug.

When the drug wears off he takes more and over a few days invests in the stock market, then goes through a dramatic withdrawal. After the withdrawal he rents a lab in order to reverse engineer the drug.

A year later, Eddie is running for the United States Senate. Eddie implies that he has had multiple laboratories working on NZT for the purposes of reverse engineering it, as well as being able to eliminate all of the negative side-effects.

He states that he has found a way to wean himself completely off of the drug without losing any of his enhanced abilities but the end of the film leaves the audience questioning whether this is true.

Resident Evil

Underneath Raccoon City exists a genetic research facility called the Hive, owned by the Umbrella Corporation. The two main characters, Alice and Matt, are trying to bring down the Umbrella corporation with evidence of illegal experiments.

A different thief steals the genetically engineered T-virus and contaminates the Hive with it when Alice and Matt are not inside. In response, the facility's artificial intelligence, the Red Queen, seals the Hive and kills everyone within.

The T-virus turns the people killed inside the hive into zombies. Alice remembers that an anti-virus is in the lab inside the Hive, but when they arrive it is missing. They find the anti-virus and Matt and Alice escape the Hive as the containment doors close.

Matt was bitten inside the hive and his wound begins mutating. Before Alice can give him the anti-virus, a group of Umbrella scientists and commandos seize them. They subdue Alice and take Matt away, revealing he is to be put into the Nemesis Program, and they intend to re-open the Hive. Alice attempts to fight them off, but is knocked unconscious.

Some time later, Alice awakens and a newspaper clipping shows that the T-virus spread to the surface after Umbrella reopened the Hive, creating an army of undead which devastated the city.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Will Rodman, a scientist at the biotechnology company Gen-Sys, is testing viral-based drug ALZ-112 on chimpanzees to find a cure for brain ailments such as Alzheimer's disease.

The baby of a chimpanzee who received the ALZ-112 dug, Caesar, has inherited his mother's high intelligence as the ALZ-112 drug passed to him in utero. Will takes Caesar home and raises him. Five years later Caeser is eventually separated from Will and placed in a primate shelter where he rises to the position of Alpha.

A more powerful, gaseous version of the viral drug (now called ALZ-113) is created which Will says will not only heal brain disease but also improve intelligence in anyone. However, a human character becomes exposed to the new drug and dies.

Caesar escapes from the shelter and returns to Will's house, where he takes canisters of the ALZ-113 and releases it back at the primate shelter, enhancing the intelligence of the other apes overnight. The apes flee.

During the credits, an infected character leaves his house for work as an airline pilot. A graphic traces the spread of the humanity-killing virus to Europe and then around the globe via international airline flight routes.

The Bourne Legacy

Aaron Cross is a government operative assigned to Operation Outcome, a program using experimental pills known as "chems" to enhance the physical and mental abilities of their users.

An order is given for all Operation Outcome soldiers to be assassinated and make way for the next generation of supersoldiers but Aaron survives. He then saves the life of Marta, an agent who can get him “chems” so that he can retain his enhanced capabilities and avoid deadly withdrawal symptoms.

Marta reveals that the next generation supersoldiers have been genetically modified by a tailored virus so they no longer need the chems. Marta infects Aaron with the same virus so he will not need the chems and he suffers some side effects but the virus works.

They are pursued by both the police and a supersoldier. The supersoldier is killed when Marta causes his motorcycle to crash into a pillar. Marta and Aaron both survive but Aaron is now irreversibly modified.

Divergent

In a dystopian future society is divided into five factions. When children reach the age of 16, they undergo a drug-induced psychological test to indicate their best-suited faction, but they are allowed to join any faction at a Choosing Ceremony.

Beatrice Prior takes her drug-induced test and her results show attributes of multiple factions, meaning she is Divergent and would fit in all five factions. Divergents can think independently, manipulate tests and are immune to drugs so they are considered threats to society and must not reveal their divergence.

Beatrice choses to join the Dauntless (brave) faction and changes her name to Tris. In training Dauntless initiates are given drugs and are subjected to psychological simulations. Tris' divergence allows her to excel at the final drug-induced test and join the Dauntless but she has to hide her divergent abilities.

The Dauntless are injected with a drug, supplied by another faction, which is supposedly for tracking but actually works alongside a computer system for mind control. Divergents are unaffected by the new drug so Tris sneaks into the Dauntless headquarters and breaks the computer system setting the Dauntless free. Tris then escapes the compound and boards a train out of the city.

This is the first list in our pharma movie trilogy, Click here for Part II  and watch out for Part III coming soon to a website near you!