CEO boasted in email of ‘handsome investment’
Drugmakers slated to testify Thursday
Federal lawmakers have released excerpts from thousands of documents detailing how two drugmakers hiked prices to squeeze more revenue from some lifesaving medicines, a practice that has recently sparked public outrage.
The congressional review of more than 300,000 pages from Turing Pharmaceuticals and Valeant Pharmaceuticals highlights the internal strategies the companies used to dramatically raise prices of drugs for patients with heart problems or conditions such as AIDS.
The new documents were released Tuesday by Rep. Elijah Cummings, DMd., ahead of a hearing Thursday to examine spikes in prices for several drugs. Cummings has used his position atop the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate several companies that have bought lowcost drugs and jacked up their prices many times over.
Cummings said in a statement that the documents show “that many drug companies are lining their pockets at the expense of some of the most vulnerable families in our nation.”
The document release comes after Turing’s former CEO, Martin Shkreli, last year became the poster child of pharmaceutical industry greed after hiking the price of a life saving drug called Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent.
Daraprim is the only approved drug for a lifethreatening parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis, which mainly strikes patients with weakened immune systems, including those with cancer and AIDS.
The patent on the drug expired decades ago. Company presentations released Tuesday show that as early as last May, Turing planned to turn Daraprim into a $200 million-a-year drug by dramatically increasing its price. Turing purchased the 6-decade-old drug from Impax Laboratories in August for $55 million and promptly raised its price.
Shkreli said in an email to one contact: “We raised the price from $1,700 per bottle to $75,000. Should be a very handsome investment for all of us.”
On Thursday, the House committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Turing’s chief commercial officer, Nancy Retzlaff, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ interim CEO, Howard Schiller.
Shkreli has indicated through his attorney that he plans to refuse to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination.
The 32-year-old former hedge fund manager was recently charged with securities fraud and conspiracy related to another pharmaceutical company he ran before founding Turing.