Martin Shkreli, chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired exclusive rights to Daraprim.
He decided to raise the price. And not by a few cents.
Shkreli became the poster boy for greed as he jacked up the price of a tablet of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750.
This drug is an anti-parasitic used by malaria and Aids patients. It was developed in the early 1950s, and has become the best treatment for a relatively rare parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis.
Shkreli, as chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, in his wheeling and dealing, acquired exclusive rights to Daraprim. It was his decision to increase the cost of the drug by more than 5000% in August 2015.
This attracted international condemnation.
To defend himself, to toss ‘sounds good/isn’t’ explanations, Shkreli has argued that the Daraprim price increase was warranted because the drug is highly specialised. No one bought it, and due to pressure, he did lower the price a bit.
However, this power to disrupt thousands of lives, to jack up a price beyond the pockets of those who need the drug had to be thwarted.
Students at a Grammar School in Sydney recreated the drug’s key ingredient in their lab for just $20.
The Students, all seventeen years old, synthesised the active ingredient, pyrimethamine, in their school science laboratory.
“It wasn’t terribly hard but that’s really the point, I think, because we’re high school students,” one boy told the BBC.
They produced 3.7 grams of pyrimethamine for $20. In the US, the same quantity would cost up to $110,000.
The boys revealed that they conducted the year-long experiment to prove how inflated the cost of drugs are in the US.
“It seems totally unjustified and ethically wrong,” a student said. “It’s a life-saving drug and so many people can’t afford it.”
The boy’s teacher said: “Everyone is very happy and pleased with the result. All the boys think it’s the most amazing thing.”
So now the drug can be created cheaper and more people can benefit.
And Martin Shkreli? He was arrested in December on allegations of securities fraud. He subsequently stepped down as the head of Turing.
His trial is set for 26 June, 2017.
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Well it sure sounds like he's a crook!
Oh yeah. He is, and he's in jail. The good thing is that his behaviour encourages others to experiment.