Spirula

Created in the year 2739 under the watchful eye of then ProtoPharm CEO Gene Manchia, Spirula was intended to be the successor to - and an improvement upon - the company's greatest achievement; the Vitae vaccine.

However, due to reasons unknown, Spirula had a catastrophic effect on both ProtoPharm's reputation and the city of Neocron as a whole. With the advertising campaign heralding it as the new panacea with which to cure the people's ills, the queues to obtain the first doses of the vaccine stretched out of the door.

What was somehow unforeseen by the rigorous testing was Spirula's tendency to alter the DNA of those who took it. Instead of curing or staving off disease, it introduced a new one into the city; irreparable genetic mutation.

Panic and public outrage spread across the city like wildfire as news of the scandal reached the Neocronicle and City Administration. Many called for Manchia to step down as a result of the debacle and it was only when Lioon Reza deemed the mutated citizens as a breed of sub-human vermin to be exterminated that he pulled the vaccine from the shelves and stepped down from his post, almost two years after the vaccine went on sale.