Eine riskante Entscheidung (2022)

At a summer festival by the lake, nine-year-old Emily Wagner collapses from an epileptic seizure and is admitted to the hospital. There, her parents learn that their daughter has an incurable form of childhood dementia. Father Michael researches online and discovers that the pharmaceutical company “Berner & Braun” is already working on a new drug, and that preliminary study results from Korea suggest it may slow the progression of the disease. The Wagners see this as a last chance to counteract Emily’s decline. Julia Schemmel has just been appointed CEO of the company, another step in her very successful career. She has no children herself, but she and her husband, Felix, have gone to considerable lengths medically to change that. However, Felix has begun to doubt whether children would have any place in their lives given how much they both work. This leads Felix to move out. Michael Wagner contacts Julia and asks her to help his daughter Emily. She refuses, however, because if adverse events occur—even ones unrelated to the drug—important investors could pull out, putting the continuation of the research at risk. That could mean that many other patients would no longer be able to receive an effective drug. Michael Wagner tries everything he can through social media and appearances on talk shows to bring widespread attention to his daughter’s illness and secure approval for the drug to be included in a study in Germany as well. Accusations of greed and failure to help are made. When Julia encounters Emily at an appointment, the little girl’s plight deeply affects her, and she begins to consider how she might help after all. Julia tries to arrange a second study before the first one has ended, which will cost the company a great deal of money and organizational effort. At the same time, she continues to face hostility; someone even throws paint-filled bags at her house in a nighttime attack. With support from an appeal by the church, Julia manages to obtain prompt authorization from the authorities so the study can begin sooner. But by then Emily’s condition has deteriorated so much that she is not eligible to take part in the study. Since the treatment would cost one million euros a year, Emily’s parents have no way to pay for it themselves. Because production is running very reliably, the company has a small surplus of the drug, allowing Emily to be included as an additional study participant under compassionate use. The company’s stock-market launch goes extremely well and brings major gains in its share price. But Julia quits her job, tells her boss that she is not the person he thinks she is, and finally drives to Mecklenburg to join her husband, Felix.