Bro bought an AIDS drug, then raised the price from $13.50 to $750

Full articlle

A former hedge fund manager purchased the rights to a drug that's been used for 62 years to treat parasitic infections, then hiked the price from around $13.50 per tablet to $750. The New York Times first reported on the price hike on Monday, leading to near immediate outrage.

The drug is called Daraprim and it is used primarily to treat infants and people who have weakened immune systems — most notably those who have AIDS. It's among the most common treatments for life-threatening parasitic infections.

Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to the drug in August and soon raised the price. Turing was founded by ex-hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, 32.

He is now the Internet's public enemy No. 1.

Besides the obvious ethical issues with this he's going to get completely destroyed by the Feds. And looking at the original article the company seems to have a history of collusion.

Isn't the rights here mostly in name?

I thought it was 10 years... This is 62 years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-09-21/why-turing-increased-price-of-daraprim-over-500-

It's because he cares.

What a piece of shit. I hope only the worst things happen to him...

wondering the same myself. has the patent been held up that long? that seems ridiculous. shouldn't there be a $20 generic that puts this turd out of business?

My understanding is that it's already a generic drug. I don't have enough knowledge on the subject so I could be wrong, but from what I've read other companies could technically manufacture and sell the drug, but it's such a small market that they effectively have a monopoly on it since no one else will given the profit prospective on it.

Again, I'm no expert (ie...know very little) on the ins-and-outs of the pharmaceutical market and is basically why I am withholding judgement on the story/company itself.

On the video @uninspiredcup posted it basically says that a generic equivalent can be made but that it wasn't necessary until now because of the previously low price.

well, that's the end of that story then.

thanks

What a ****. More importantly, is he that fevered by avarice that he thinks this will actually work?

This isn't an isolated incident. This type of thing has been going on for YEARS although the mechanism by which it occurs varies by case (delayed patent/never previously patented over the previous decades of use, small market, etc).

Looking forward to the TPP and other agreements extending that pain into other regions (eyeroll)

Where is the generic version?

Maybe some degree of price increase would have been necessary, and the purpose of business decisions is generally to make a profit. But that big of a jump, to that high of a price, seems unnecessary and greedy on the surface, but I don't know all the facts so I don't want to come at him too hard. Medicine however is not just a business, when it comes to medically necessary pharmaceuticals there is a moral element involved.

I wouldn't be surprised if his company would do some price-discriminating and sell the pill at higher costs in the U.S. and other developed countries where the insurance companies and government agencies would be the ones picking up most of the tab, and then sell it cheaper in third world countries where people would have to pay out of pocket and generally don't have much money. But then again i've heard that there is a big problem with many cancer drugs: people in the U.S. and other countries can easily afford them because insurance companies and government programs pick up most of the tab, but people in developing countries cannot afford such things and thus many of them die of cancers that they could have beaten if they were living in a different country.

When you can't afford the meds that you NEED, your life is a living hell.

Shkreli is a League of Legends player who goes by the name "Cerebral"

Monster confirmed.

So his logic is up the price so only those that can afford it can buy it, the rest won't and possibly die as a result, and the reason for doing that is to possibly create " A more effective drug"?

Well nice to get a prime example of capitalistic greed at it's worst.

From what I understand (which is very little) people who actually know about drugs have been calling this out as bullshit. Even in his interview on live tv the presenter said she spoke with someone in the field minutes prior specifically saying they didn't need a new pill.

He's been doing the rounds on twitter, when he was challenged by someone who studied medicine his response was "you're a moron".

Hilariously as well, he posted up an Eminem song in some form of shitty symbolism

pure evil.

And that is the biggest problem with the healthcare industry in this country. When insurance companies and government programs are paying for everything, they don't give a shit about the price. In fact, they actually like having shit be as expensive as possible, because it gives them an excuse to charge more for coverage (for the insurance companies), and demand bigger budgets (for the govt. programs). Since these insurance companies and government programs will pay almost any price, the providers of the products and services they pay for don't have to worry about being price-effective, they don't have to worry about being too expensive for their market, and often times they just charge ridiculous amounts because they can. If this bullshit system wasn't artificially driving up the price of medical care, your average young healthy person wouldn't need insurance. Because they're not likely to get sick, and if they do happen to have an accident or something and have to go to the ER for a broken bone or whatever, and pay for it out of pocket, it would't be THAT big of a deal. It'd be like, "damn that hospital bill means I can't buy a new video card til next month", or "guess I'll be a week late on rent", rather than "damn that hospital bill means I'll be in debt for the rest of my life".

I hope he gets AIDS.

How long until one is made? Is it done in months or something that also takes a few years to do?

I think it would depend on the urgency, production capacity of the company that decides to make it. Hopefully soon enough.

Patents only tell one part of the story. If the FDA had price control measures in place these guys wouldn't be able to artificially price their drug no matter the patent. In other countries like Canada, Australia, and the UK the government heavily regulates the pharmaceuticals market and essentially sets the prices of drugs themselves. In the UK specifically they have a branch of the NHS that's like the FDA but they also determine the cost that each drug is able to be sold for in the country via studies and panels. The price of drugs is an uncompetitive market and considered similar to utilities like water and electricity.

This drug is already generic, other companies can (and could have before) manufactured/distributed this particular drug. My understanding is this drug falls into a small market segment where it's not really worth it for other companies to start making it (not profitable), and because of this guys like this can essentially monopolize the drug and increase the prices.

I believe it was said the total revenue from the drug previously was $5 million/yr. That's not a whole lot of profit incentive for another company to start manufacturing it re-selling it at (or near) the original cost of the drug. Another issue is while it is a generic formula, I think there is costs associated with another company going ahead and trying to bring it to market. They still will have to get certifications/invest in marketing the drug/etc and the cost is high.

That's why even though it is already generic (no patent issues), the company has a quasi-monopoly since it is unlikely another company will invest the capital to bring the drug to market for such a small profit.

Yes. According to the original article Daraprim now has it's manufacturing controlled which makes it much harder for someone to make a generic version of it. No word if it's under the Controlled Substances Act because I can't find anything on that right now. The rest of your post highlights the problems with the for profit health care industry in the U.S. I work in health care policy for a branch of government and this stuff is always disheartening to read about.

What a shyster. This is what happens when a culture exalts greed as a virtue. Mr. Shkreli is going to discover that karma is real. It will be interesting to see how it comes back around to him.

This is why I like gulags.

Because there is such a silence on Aids now, i thought they had found a cure. Before everywhere you went you saw postings of Aids, and research. I hope this guy gets what he deserves. Pathetic human being, the Aids community should gang up and inject him with hundreds of needles. Then make him pay a billion dollars for the meds he is selling.

Do not hate the playa. Hate the system that allowed the playa to be there.

He is most certainly someone who is scum. But the problem is not him it's the whole free market idea surrounding health care.

Making money on sick people is the definition of depravity.

@Jacanuk: That's capitalism for you.

Honestly, I'd rather just get my affairs in order and live what little life I had left than pay that kind of extortion...

People like this disgust me to no end. There really should be ways to prevent these kinds of things from happening.

Yeah, and it's like with this HHS mandate the Obama Administration is pushing so that all FDA approved female contraceptives must be covered by all insurance plans with no cost-sharing or copay so that the company foots the whole bill for the contraceptives. Democrats are portraying it as a big win for women, but really the big winners are the pharmaceutical companies who make these products since now that the people buying the pills aren't paying for them, they can jack up the price as high as they want and the insurance company is stuck paying for the whole thing, so of course they have to raise premiums.

He's the definition of a sociopath.

No doubt. The US healthcare system, in it's entirety, is simply FUBAR. But we can't fix it because any solution, no matter how mild and ineffective, gets labelled the "S" word.

It's already available for a pittance in countries with First World health care systems:

From BBC coverage of the story:

• Daraprim costs 43p ($0.66) per tablet in the UK.
• Before the recent price rise, one tablet cost $13.50 in the US.
• Now one tablet costs $750.00 in the US.

So the drug was subject to an obscene mark-up even before the newest price-hike!

Oh yeah. I guess not many people know this already, but this drug has already been through this exact same thing. Previously it was sold in the US for about $1 a pill. Then another company bought it and raised the price to $13.50 a pill. Then, this company bought it and raised it to $750 a pill.

If the drug has been out for 62 years, the patent is long expired.

Yep, there are two things at play here enabling the behavior. First, the demand is limited and the price floor is known (about $1 per pill or less). Thus, the business decision to take on the initial investment (generic development + production capacity) is more difficult as you know that the original creator can drop the price again to as low as $1 a pill. Even though the initial investment is comparably light for a generic, it can still be difficult to recoup that investment making $1 pills for 2000 patients a year. Second, the company that bought the medicine the first time (that jumped the price to $13.50) shifted it's distribution model to one that is tightly controlled, thereby making it difficult for prospective generics providers to acquire the current medicine for testing. This distribution model was cited by Shkreli during a previous gig as a way to thwart generics.

That's the current problem with all generics - and why a lot of companies are getting out of them.

The easiest solution to this would be to simply let US consumers buy it from abroad. Let the market work instead of these artificial constraints. If people can buy it for 66 cents in Canada, let the the US pharmacies import it from there and then we'll Shkreli cry tears of lost wealth.

That's an odd proposal in this case, isn't it (although I'm not necessarily opposed to it)? Isn't that basically leaning on the price controls of those other countries? That is to say, wouldn't that be less about encouraging competition and more about leaning on the regulations other countries have in place?

Thank god for rich job creators like this guy. Wait did I say thank God? I meant thank goodness we have Gods like him among us.

Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli became one of the most loathed executives in America overnight when the New York Times reported that he’d jacked up the price of a 62-year-old drug, Daraprim, from $13.50 to $750 a pill.

The medication, which was acquired by Turing in August, is used to treat complications often found in AIDS and cancer patients. A once affordable drug has now been all but priced out of reach for many patients.

I won’t go into detail about how starkly this underscores the problems in our deeply anti-competitive pharmaceutical industry. Instead, thanks to Kotaku’s Yannick LeJacq, we now know that Shkreli is also an eSports team owner—and eSports, unlike big pharma, is plenty competitive.

Shkreli got involved in MOBA eSports in May of 2015, starting the League of Legends team Imagine. Later he acquired the Dota 2 team Leviathan. League of Legends and Dota 2 are two of the largest competitive eSports games on the market.

Damn PC gamers...

Wouldn't it be more like letting the market decide the price? Like sonicare says...

Except most of those prices in the other countries are regulated by their national healthcare systems.

This most assuredly can be rested on the shoulders of people like this.. They bought and paid the system of government for decades to allow shit like this happening.. Hell take a look at what is happening with things like the EPA, thanks to tons of lobbying and uncontrollable corporate spending, the organization that is suppose to ensure our drinking water is safe is being defunded and slowly dismantled.. These people are fucking psychopaths with no empathy.. The Koch brothers are another prime example in which they are doing everything in their power, two men, to dismantle the system of restrictions set in place to protect people for their own profit interests.. They aren't doing this to even survive, they are doing this to increase their already astronomical profits even further..

Hell even that would have sorted it self out if it weren't for the fact that the executives in charge have absolutely no consequences when they **** up or do something highly unethical.. They usually get fired, get a giant bonus because of it, and are hired as a CEO some place else.. This dbag right here is a prime example of it.. BBC covered how this asshole was actually harassing a former employee's WIFE AND CHILD in social media and texting them directly, saying how he is going to do everything in his power to ensure they are homeless.. I mean wtf? And we have people out there actually defending these fucking CEO's as "hard workers" and the "successful" when they turn out to be the most fucked up people in society...

We have one right now doing well in polls in politics, Fionia, who was fired by HP for a MULTI BILLION TAX SCANDAL.. Meanwhile we have poor assholes getting denied entry level jobs because of poor credit scores....

This is what is fucking baffling about this entire culture.. The Republican party, the people who wear their Christian beliefs on their sleeves, promote and congratulate this kind of behavior and success.. How can you claim to follow Christ, when Jesus himself spoke out against materialism and greed..