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Sydney High School Students Recreate Active Ingredient of Daraprim for $20

posted by on Thursday December 01 2016, @04:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the scientists-in-the-making dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The ABC news website (an Australian national news service funded by the Australian government) reports on a group of high school students from Sydney Australia who have managed to recreate the active ingredient in Daraprim for a mere $20.

Daraprim has received a lot of coverage recently after Turing Pharmaceuticals who owns the patent, initially raised the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750.00, though they have since stated that the price will be reduced.

From the article:

For $US20, a group of high school students has created 3.7 grams of an active ingredient used in the medicine Daraprim, which would sell in the United States for between $US35,000 and $US110,000.

Pyrimethamine, the active ingredient in Daraprim, treats a parasitic infection in people with weak immune systems such as pregnant women and HIV patients.

In August 2015, the price of Daraprim in the US rose from $US13.50 per tablet to $US750 when Turing Pharmaceuticals, and its controversial then-chief executive Martin Shkreli, acquired the drug's exclusive rights and hiked up the price.

Since then, the 17-year-olds from Sydney Grammar have worked in their school laboratory to create the drug cheaply in order to draw attention to its inflated price overseas, which student Milan Leonard said was "ridiculous".

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 01 2016, @06:22PM (#435568)

    Let em try to do the paperwork for FDA approval, the paperwork and extra expense of an FDA approved manufacturing process... If the paperwork could be streamlined

    I wonder if this ever got fixed, it sounds like most of the paperwork they get is shipped to a warehouse and thrown on a pile:

    The Subcommittee found that the FDA’s current critical information supply chains are, at best, inefficient, cost intensive and prone to promote errors in regulatory science due to the inability to access, integrate and analyze data. Incredibly, critical data resides in large warehouses sequestered in piles and piles of paper documents. There are no effective mechanisms to protect these paper records, which include very valuable clinical trial data. Furthermore, processes for data and information exchange, both internally as well as among external partners, lack clear business processes, information technology standards, sufficient workforce expertise, and a robust technology platform, such that the FDA cannot credibly process, manage, protect, access, analyze and leverage the vast amounts of data that it encounters.

    http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/07/briefing/2007-4329b_02_01_FDA%20Report%20on%20Science%20and%20Technology.pdf [fda.gov]