Tycoon puts up price of Aids pill by 5,500%
A FORMER hedge fund manager has bought the rights to a 62-year- old drug used to treat Aids patients – and raised the price by nearly 5,500 per cent overnight.
Martin Shkreli insists increasing the price of the pill – which costs just under £1 per tablet to make – from £ 8.78 to £ 488.26 is ‘ just good business’.
But the 32-year- old American has been roundly criticised – with even Hillary Clinton expressing outrage.
Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased the rights to Daraprim from Impax Laboratories for nearly £36million in August.
The drug is used to treat toxoplas- mosis, a parasite infection that can cause life-threatening problems in those with weakened immune systems, such as Aids sufferers and some cancer patients.
Shkreli said he increased the price because the company ‘needed to turn a profit on the drug’. ‘This isn’t the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business,’ he said.
He added that many patients use the drug for under a year and that the price is on par with similar treatments for rare diseases.
The drug has previously been passed from one pharmaceutical firm to another, with the price steadily increasing from 65p to the current £8.78 cost. But the latest hike could put it out of the reach of many patients.
In the Uk, the NHS is the main drugs buyer, and prices are set through a voluntary scheme between manufacturers and the Government. But in the US, private insurance companies buy up treatments as well as the government, meaning prices are more vulnerable to changes in the market.
Since the price hike, Shkreli has been branded ‘evil’ and ‘the worst person in America’ by critics on social media.
Democratic presidential candidate Mrs Clinton wrote on Twitter: ‘Price gouging like this in the speciality drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on.’
In an open letter to Turing, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the HIV Medicine Association urged the company to rethink the new pricing structure. ‘This cost is unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population in need of this medication and unsustainable for the health care system,’ they wrote.
But Shkreli has so far refused to budge, saying previous drugs companies were almost ‘giving it away’.
He has said that the proceeds will be used to research better treatments and raise awareness for toxoplasmosis. When he was a hedge funder, Shkreli was accused of trying to manipulate US government regulations on drug companies.
He is currently being sued for £42million after being accused of using funds from the last company he founded to pay off investors he allegedly defrauded.