Longitude Pharmaceuticals

Longitude Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a pharmaceutical research and development company located in Itta Bena, Mississippi on the edge of the Black Brake Swamp. Founded in 1966 with the slogan "Greeting the Future with Better Drugs," Longitude currently focuses its efforts on treating collagen vascular diseases and associated myopathies, such as dermatomyositis and polymyositis.

The company experienced a period of strong growth and success under the stewardship of CEO Charles J. Slade. Longitude was involved in the development of several drugs and vaccines until inexplicably finding itself in financial trouble, and ultimately, after a laboratory fire reportedly claimed Slade's life, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They emerged more streamlined and focused under a new CEO named Dalquist. Under former CEO Slade, Longitude Pharmaceuticals launched a covert research and development project called Project Aves thirteen years prior to the events of Fever Dream. Based on independent research by Helen Esterhazy Pendergast brought to Longitude by her brother - a friend and former student of Slade's - the project was centered on a mind-enhancement drug culled from the avian flu.

Project Aves, while promising, quickly began draining Longitude of its financial reserves, even as the researchers began to cut corners and ignore safety protocols to save money. Eventually, the lax safety precautions resulted in the escape of one of the birds being used to culture and test the virus. The bird found its way to the nearby town of Sunflower, where it subsequently infected a family with the experimental avian flu.

Rather than issue a public warning about the escape and treat the family for the disease, however, Slade decided to simply observe the family's reaction to the virus, essentially sacrificing them to save millions in extensive experimental test protocols. When the family died, the project was shut down.

Over a decade after the project dissolved, Special Agent Pendergast and Laura Hayward investigated the company. After speaking to Longitude's former legal counsel, Denison Phillips IV, who revealed many of the details of Project Aves, they visited the company's headquarters but found little remaining from Slade's time. CEO Dalquist allowed them full access to the facility, and an investigation of the burned ruins of the former laboratory revealed little of interest except the remains of a shipping manifest marked "Delivery completed to Nova G.", hinting at a connection between Longitude, the mind-enhancement drug, and the Covenant experiments in Nova Godoi, Brazil.