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Medicine that costs $1 to make raised in price from $13.50 to $750.00
The head of a US pharmaceutical company has defended his company's decision to raise the price of a 62-year-old medication used by Aids patients by over 5,000%. Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to Daraprim in August.
CEO Martin Shkreli has said that the company will use the money it makes from sales to research new treatments. The drug is used treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic affliction that affects people with compromised immune systems.
After Turning's acquisition, a dose of Daraprim in the US increased from $13.50 (£8.70) to $750. The pill costs about $1 to produce, but Mr Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager, said that does not include other costs like marketing and distribution.
Cost of Daraprim Medication Raised By Over 50 Times
BBC is reporting on a massive price hike of an essential drug used by AIDS patients:
The head of a US pharmaceutical company has defended his company's decision to raise the price of a 62-year-old medication used by Aids patients by over 5,000%. Turing Pharmaceuticals acquired the rights to Daraprim in August. CEO Martin Shkreli has said that the company will use the money it makes from sales to research new treatments.
The drug is used treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic affliction that affects people with compromised immune systems. After Turning's acquisition, a dose of Daraprim in the US increased from $13.50 (£8.70) to $750. The pill costs about $1 to produce, but Mr Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager, said that does not include other costs like marketing and distribution. "We needed to turn a profit on this drug," Mr Shkreli told Bloomberg TV. "The companies before us were just giving it away almost." On Twitter, Mr Shkreli mocked several users who questioned the company's decision, calling one reporter "a moron".
Why not switch to a generic pyrimethamine tablet? They don't exist right now, according to the New York Times (story includes examples of other recent price hikes):
With the price now high, other companies could conceivably make generic copies, since patents have long expired. One factor that could discourage that option is that Daraprim's distribution is now tightly controlled, making it harder for generic companies to get the samples they need for the required testing.
The switch from drugstores to controlled distribution was made in June by Impax, not by Turing. Still, controlled distribution was a strategy Mr. Shkreli talked about at his previous company as a way to thwart generics.
The drug is also used to treat malaria and appears on the World Health Organization Model List of Essential Medicines. Toxoplasmosis infections are a feline gift to the world.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday September 22 2015, @09:57PM
Until you've lived under it, and the cure you need isn't approved, but dangerous and ineffective measures are because they're cheaper.
So, exactly like how it works here in the States, then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 22 2015, @10:12PM
In the states you can:
a) go to an alternative provider
b) save up the money for what you need
c) take what's on offer
d) do without
e) engage in medical tourism to elsewhere where you can get what you need
In socialised medicine, A and B are off the table. If the government is the gatekeeper, there are reduced avenues. Medical tourism to the US of A actually happens too, because you can find doctors who will do all sorts of things no matter what your government at home thinks.
Bear in mind that a cheap, ineffective option is often worse in the long term because you still haven't solved the original problem, which levies its own (emotional, physical and ultimately financial) toll.
Granted, socialised medicine as a fall back option when you still have a private medical industry still leaves you A and B, provided that the government isn't unduly restricting the formulary. This is why private medicine helps keep socialised medicine honest.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 23 2015, @12:52AM
Umm, that only stands if all of the options you provided are equal, and provide an outcome as positive as the fewer outcomes socialised healthcare does. Unfortunately for you none of that is true unless you are unusually wealthy.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nollij on Wednesday September 23 2015, @04:32AM
Well, using the UK NHS, which seems to be everyone's reference point on "socialized medicine", I would point out that there ARE alternative, private insurers and providers, operating entirely outside of the NHS. They just aren't very popular, because most people are satisfied with the NHS. So A and B are back on the table.
Medical tourism happens all the time, for various reasons. Some people do go from the UK to the US for treatment. Some go from US to India for very expensive procedures. Some go from US to Brazil for procedures banned in the US. And some people go from the US to Mexico, to reap the benefits of their single-payer system.
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