man buys rights to aids tablets and the price goes through the roof..

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3243938/Ex-hedge-funder-32-hated-man-internet-defends-jacking-prices-AIDS-medication-5500.html


Meet the most despised man in the world: Global outrage as 32-year-old ex-hedge funder buys rights to AIDS drug and promptly raises price overnight by 5500% - from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill

• Martin Shkreli, 32, founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, purchased the rights to Daraprim in August for $55million
  
  
• He raised the price of the drug form $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet
  
  
• Since the announcement, people across social media have criticized the price increase
  
  
• Shkreli has backed the decision, saying that his company 'needed to turn a profit on the drug'
  
  
• Daraprim treats toxoplasmois, an opportunistic parasitic infection that can cause serious and life-threatening problems
  
  
• Hillary Clinton weighed in on the issue, calling the price hike 'outrageous'
  
  
• Shkreli called the editor of Fierce Biotech 'a moron' after he questioned the CEO's reasoning behind increasing the price of Daraprim
  
  

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3243938/Ex-hedge-funder-32-hated-man-internet-defends-jacking-prices-AIDS-medication-5500.html#ixzz3mTIGbUpi 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Aren't drugs covered by the generic rules these days, whereby after a few years they are available for mass manufacture by any company with formula having to be made available?

Tommy Monk wrote:

Aren't drugs covered by the generic rules these days, whereby after a few years they are available for mass manufacture by any company with formula having to be made  available?

 he was quoted as saying the drugs need to turn a profit, he has a lot in common with the pharma companies...

I'm talking about companies only being able to charge high amounts for new drugs for a set number of yeaR until they have to make the formula available to others to make and sell cheaply...

Tommy Monk wrote:

Aren't drugs covered by the generic rules these days, whereby after a few years they are available for mass manufacture by any company with formula having to be made available?

Apparently, nobody else has bothered to produce the drug because it's rarely used.

It's not rarely used...


From Wikipedia...



Pyrimethamine/paɪrɪmɛθeɪmiːn/ (trade name Daraprim) is a medication used for protozoal infections. It is commonly used as an antimalarial drug (for both treatment and prevention of malaria), and to treat Toxoplasma gondii infections, particularly when combined with the sulfonamide antibiotic sulfadiazine when treating HIV-positive individuals.
It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system.[1]

Tommy Monk wrote:It's not rarely used...


From Wikipedia...



Pyrimethamine/paɪrɪmɛθeɪmiːn/ (trade name Daraprim) is a medication used for protozoal infections. It is commonly used as an antimalarial drug (for both treatment and prevention of malaria), and to treat Toxoplasma gondii infections, particularly when combined with the sulfonamide antibiotic sulfadiazine when treating HIV-positive individuals.
It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system.[1]

If it was used extensively, other pharma companies would have developed it.

There are other drugs to treat malaria anyway.

Who says it is rarely used?




But my question was about older drugs having to be available to other companies to produce...?

Isn't that how things work now?


They became generic after a few years and and formula becomes available to all to produce...?

Tommy Monk wrote:Who says it is rarely used?




But my question was about older drugs having to be available to other companies to produce...?

Isn't that how things work now?


They became generic after a few years and and formula becomes available to all to produce...?

They are free to develop a drug on which the patent has expired, yes. The question is - why has nobody else done so? Apparently, a company in India has produced it, but that's the only one. There are suggestions that it's a difficult drug to produce, but it might be that it was very cheap previously so there was no incentive for anyone else to produce it because they wouldn't be able to undercut the original suppliers. There is an incentive now of course.

Yes, there is...

Tommy Monk wrote:Yes, there is...

Although there are issues re resistance to Daraprim, so maybe not ...

Why buy up a drug that is so difficult to make and has resistance issues...?


And will our NHS now say that it is too expensive to be available like it does with other drugs?

Tommy Monk wrote:Why buy up a drug that is so difficult to make and has resistanc

I expect he hopes to make a load of dosh before it becomes completely useless.

Tommy Monk wrote:Why buy up a drug that is so difficult to make and has resistance issues...?


And will our NHS now say that it is too expensive to be available like it does with other drugs?

The NHS might say that. It's usually prescribed for those with lowered immunity anyway - like people with AIDS or HIV who get protozoal infections and can't fight them on their own. There are alternatives, but they're allegedly not as effective, or haven't been proved to be as effective.

Interestingly, Turing is marketed as a company which develops drugs for patients who have limited treatment options.

TURING PHARMACEUTICALS
is a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company focusing on patients with unmet medical needs. We are dedicated to helping patients, who often have limited or no effective treatment options, by developing and commercializing innovative treatments for serious diseases and conditions across a broad range of therapeutic areas.

http://www.turingpharma.com/

Here is their statement regarding Daraprim.

http://www.turingpharma.com/media/news

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Toxoplasmosis/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Regardless of how often its used, there should be a cap on how much someone can charge?!
You can't just charge what you like surely?

eddie wrote:Regardless of how often its used, there should be a cap on how much someone can charge?!
You can't just charge what you like surely?

Hilary Clinton agrees with you.

Martin Shkreli takes the view that this is a neglected area of research, and that the money will help to fund new developments and research in his company.

He should also research the secrets of eternal youth - he looks very young.

He's also being sued by the company he previously co-founded - Retrophin - for $65 dollars re the use of company funds.

It's ludicrous what he's doing! He's not doing it for the good of his fellow man is he?

doesn't surprise me all the pharma companies are making big bucks from sick people .

eddie wrote:It's ludicrous what he's doing! He's not doing it for the good of his fellow man is he?

Hard to say really. He's not a scientist, he's an entrepreneur, so he's going to have an eye to the main chance. On the other hand, his company is researching rare diseases and treatment, so maybe some good will come out of it.

Vicar Of Dibley wrote:doesn't surprise me all the pharma companies are making big bucks from sick people .

Possibly, but if it wasn't for them, many people would be a lot sicker.

Let's hear from the man himself.

The price of cycloserine also rose dramatically recently, but the drug was given back to the original company after share prices were affected - because of fears that the Government would interfere to cap drug prices generally.

http://www.ibtimes.com/tuberculosis-drug-cycloserines-massive-price-hike-rodelis-therapeutics-rolled-back-2107884

There are also complaints about the price of sofosbuvir, developed by Gilead.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/20/business/high-cost-of-hepatitis-c-drug-prompts-a-call-to-void-its-patents.html

Aside from the issue of people not being able to afford this drug, I'm finding it quite amusing. This chap, Martin Shkreli, is certainly no shrinking violet. He might have to back down a bit of course if the market is affected and/or confidence in his company is undermined, but it won't be by choice. He was fired from the first company he set up, so he simply started another one - you've got to admire his stamina at least.

He called one journalist a "moron" on Twitter when he was asked why he raised the price of Daraprim so much.

let the revolution start with him.

And Rags Not True that people would be sicker. in the USA yes, but here and the UK we used to gov't fund it but the Pharma Lobby tries to stop that.

we don't need them, research and production can be publicly funded as the main consumer is the health system, which is also public in our nations, it would provide huge efficiencies that would make it less of a tax burden to have more medicines available for cheaper simply by removing the profiteers.

veya_victaous wrote:let the revolution start with him.

And Rags Not True that people would be sicker. in the USA yes, but here and the UK we used to gov't fund it but the Pharma Lobby tries to stop that.

we don't need them, research and production can be publicly funded as the main consumer is the health system, which is also public in our nations, it would provide huge efficiencies that would make it less of a tax burden to have more medicines available for cheaper simply by removing the profiteers.

Of course people would be sicker without the pharma companies. There would be no drugs. Do you really think the Government is going to risk using tax payers' money to research and develop all new drugs, which might or might not work? Do you have any idea how much it costs, and how many drugs fail?

CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/
We already do.. We have for a long time
and the biggest lobby group against it is Big Pharma
So no we would just do it without letting the asshole make profit on top for no reason.

A selection of currently Government funded medical research projects

AND Taxpayer ALREADY FUND IT
Every time it doesn't work it is called A loss and is a TAX RIGHT OFF
It is the same with the Banks, the Public has now taken on all the risk and cost of failure yet we still let them make ridiculous profits for almost ZERO RISK!!!

maybe if you learn a little about the costs involved too you would see the most of the cost are artificial. and more is spent on IP litigation then research.

veya_victaous wrote:CSIRO  http://www.csiro.au/
We already do.. We have for a long time
and the biggest lobby group against it is Big Pharma
So no we would just do it without letting the asshole make profit on top for no reason.

A selection of currently Government funded medical research projects

Of course the Government sponsors research - it does that here too. We're talking about rights to own, distribute, and market specific drugs. From the examples you've given, the Government doesn't own the rights to set the price for those contact lenses, sunscreen, and pain relief drugs does it?

Drugs trials take years, so what if there's a change of Government, and it decides to discontinue a trial because they think it's a waste of time, or that the drug isn't needed? The public wouldn't be too pleased about that. the tax payers wouldn't be too pleased if a drug fails after their money has been spent on research. It's the companies themselves and shareholders who take on the risks within the pharma industry.

So anyway, back to Martin Shkreli. This guy is an entrepreneur, a business man, and something of a gambler. He has paid $55 million for the rights to this drug. He's gone OTT with raising the price of it of course, but his reasoning is that he needs to recoup the money he spent, and to make enough profit to develop better drugs to treat this condition. If he does indeed manage to do that, he'll be congratulated, it's just that it will take a long time, and in the meantime the use of Daraprim may well be deemed too expensive for healthcare providers.

The problem isn't what he's charging for this drug, the problem is that he has a monopoly on it. If other companies had developed a generic version, there's no way he could have competed, and he wouldn't have bothered buying the rights in the first place.

Impax sold the rights to Turing because Daraprim was a "non-core asset". They had no interest in it really, and neither did anyone else. That's what this guy has honed in on - drugs that nobody else is that excited about to treat conditions that nobody else is developing new drugs for. He's taking a big risk, and it will be interesting to see what happens as a result.

In fact, I'm wondering if he's got other ideas. The outrage about this doesn't seem to have bothered him at all, and the threat of capping drug prices doesn't seem to bother him either. Of course he might be counting on such a move failing, or that it would take so long that he'll make a ton of money before it happens.

Hmmmmm.

Well well ...

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drug-ceo-will-lower-price-daraprim-after-outrage-n431926

He did say on Twitter that he would make a statement last night and then make his Twitter account private. Interesting.

I'm just loving this story - thank you HF for posting it.

Martin Shkreli is a clever man. I'll be watching the reactions to this latest development.

I see what you did there.

I see that his critics aren't saying much now that he had a sudden change of heart. Perhaps they're thinking about what it all means and whether they've been taken in or not.

Raggamuffin wrote:I see what you did there.

I see that his critics aren't saying much now that he had a sudden change of heart. Perhaps they're thinking about what it all means and whether they've been taken in or not.

It wasn't me who did that

Ben_Reilly wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:I see what you did there.

I see that his critics aren't saying much now that he had a sudden change of heart. Perhaps they're thinking about what it all means and whether they've been taken in or not.

It wasn't me who did that

I think I did well to spot it at all.

He's very well known now isn't he? All because of a storm in a teacup.