Turing Pharmaceuticals has purchased the rights to the drug Daraprim and increased the price of the lifesaving medication by over 5000 per cent. Picture: Twitter
A YOUNG pharmaceutical company CEO who bought the rights to a lifesaving HIV-treating drug and increased its price from $18.70 to $1040 per pill has reneged on his pledge to cut it again.
Turing Pharmaceuticals chief executive Martin Shkreli, who was dubbed "the most hated on the internet", has maintained the 5,000 per cent inflated price of parasitic infection treatment Daraprim despite international outcry and a subsequent pledge to lower it.
Shkreli shot to infamy — and was labelled a "morally bankrupt sociopath" — after Turing pharmaceuticals first jacked up the price. Compounding the apparent greediness, and the global outrage it caused, was Shkreli's obliviousness, at one point even "giving the finger" to his critics.
What a nice guy.Source:Supplied
The small biotech company is reducing what it charges hospitals for the drug by up to 50 per cent, for the drug. In the US, most patients' co-payments will be capped at $13.80 or less a month. But insurers will be stuck with the bulk of the $1040 tab. That drives up future treatment and insurance costs.
Daraprim is a 62-year-old pill whose patent expired decades ago. It's the preferred treatment for a rare parasitic infection, toxoplasmosis, which mainly threatens people with weak immune systems, such as HIV and organ transplant patients, and pregnant women, because it can kill their baby.
Martin Shkreli speaks to CBS News0:57
Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreliwhich explains why he raised an AIDS drug by 4000 per cent overnight. Courtesy CBS News
HIV Medicine Association chairman Dr Carlos del Rio, called Turing's changes "just window dressing."
Turing's move comes after a pharmacy that compounds prescription drugs for individual patients, Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, started selling a custom-made version for 99 cents per capsule. Those sales weren't a factor in Turing's pricing strategy, chief marketing officer Nancy Retzlaff said Wednesday.
Dr Del Rio noted that while hospitals treat many patients initially, most are then treated at home for a couple months, so the lower hospital price doesn't help.
"This medication can be made for pennies. They need to reduce the price to what it was before," he said.
Martin Shkreli's company Turing Pharmaceuticals purchased the rights to the drug Daraprim and increased it's price by over 5000 per cent. Picture: Twitter.Source:Twitter
Turing, with offices in New York and Switzerland, bought US rights to sell Daraprim in August, when it had no competition. Daraprim is one of numerous old drugs with limited competition whose makers have raised prices sharply.
A furore over Turing's staggering 5000 per cent price hike erupted, triggering multiple government investigations and pledges from politicians to rein in soaring prescription drug prices. Those include newly approved medicines costing around $138,500 a year and some old, formerly cheap generics.
Amid the heat, Mr Shkreli said he'd lower the price. Instead, the company just lowered hospitals' price and is offering the option of buying 30-pill bottles instead of 100-pill bottles to reduce their costs to stock it. Mr Shkreli wasn't available for an interview.
Imprimis chief executive Mark Baum said Wednesday in an exclusive interview that orders are pouring in for its version of Daraprim from doctors and the company has dispensed more than 2,500 capsules since October 22.
Dr. Warren Dinges of the Seattle Infectious Diseases Clinic said he's treating an HIV patient who got toxoplasmosis in his eye, damaging his vision. The man, an artist, tried to fill a prescription Dinges wrote for Daraprim but was told by his pharmacy that it wasn't in stock and would cost about $37,000 for a month's supply.
Dinges instead got Imprimis to make up a custom version for barely $138 per month.
"He was feeling great on Monday" at a check-up, with his symptoms much reduced, Dinges said.
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