"People with weakened immune systems, such as Aids patients, have come to rely on the drug, which until recently cost about $13.50 (£8.80) a dose. But Mr Shkreli announced he was raising the price to $750 a pill."
How is that even legal ?
"The additional profits he said will be used to make improvements to the 62-year-old drug recipe."
Yes, while the people who actually need it probably can't afford it any more.
""We've agreed to lower the price on Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit," he told ABC News. "We think these changes will be welcomed.""
Why do I suspect that this man's idea of "very small profit" and my idea of "very small profit" might be quite different things ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34331761
I have seen this story also and read about it. Pretty disturbing for me also to think that someone (or some company) could raise the price by 5000% for a very important drug to treat Taxoplasmosis without any form of regulatory control..
ReplyDeleteHe saw the errors of his ways and it was reported that he is dropping the price... how much, I'm not sure... I didn't follow up on that part.
ReplyDeleteMark Ruhland I don't think it's been announced yet. Keep in mind that the drug cost $1 to make and was being sold for $13.50, and this man said that was like selling an Aston Martin for the price of a bicylce. A more than 100% profit doesn't sound to small to me, so it's anyone's guess what this guy's idea of a small profit is.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-34320413
(though, the $1 probably doesn't include distribution costs)
Rhys Taylor http://investingnews.com/daily/life-science-investing/pharmaceutical-investing/turing-pharmaceuticals-daraprim-martin-shkreli/
ReplyDeleteI have seen lots of discussions regarding the issue of legality and lack of regulations to prevent a person or a company from placing an outrageous and out of reach for many, price on a life saving drug. However one aspect of this entire story that I have seen little or no discussion about is the ethics of ownership of a vital human life saving technology. What I mean by that is shouldn't there be certain technologies that because of their incredible value to humanity should become part of the human knowledge domain? For example in the specific case of this drug (Daraprim), although Turing medical might have all the rights of ownership of their particular pill itself, shouldn't the chemical formula be made available to public domain to allow other competitors to create alternative brand names? We are not speaking Coca Cola here, a recreational beverage, we are speaking technologies such as the creation of a drug that has life savings implications for many people..
ReplyDeletex infinity... I could only give you one "+", so I cheated and multiplied it by infinity;-)
ReplyDelete