The Small Pharma Company Trying to Foil Martin Shkreli’s Price-Gouging Scheme
Remember Martin Shkreli? Of course you do. Last month, the young former hedge funder became
the smirking face of
drug-industry villainy after news broke that his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, had bought the rights to Daraprim, a 62-year-old medication used by AIDS and cancer patients to fight life-threatening parasitic infections, then jacked up the cost from roughly $13.50 to $750 a pill. Hillary Clinton
condemned him. So did
Bernie Sanders. So did pretty much everybody with an Internet connection. Shkreli
eventually relented and said he would lower Daraprim's price somewhat, though he hasn't specified by how much or when.
In the meantime, a competitor has stepped up to take him on. San Diego–based Imprimis Pharmaceuticals announced this week that it will
now offer a made-to-order version of Daraprim for as little as $1 per tablet. The company also says it plans to offer similarly cheap versions of other generic or off-patent drugs where companies have cornered and dramatically raised prices. Not surprisingly, the move has been greeted with more than a bit of glee online.
Gawker summed up the sentiment in a
post titled, "Heroic Pharmaceutical Company Viciously Undercuts Martin Shrkeli's Pill Scam."
While that certainly makes for a satisfying headline, things might not be quite that simple.
To start, let's talk about why Shkreli's price-gouging scheme seemed like an act of such evil genius. Daraprim, again, is more than a half-century old and no longer under patent...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/...be_foiled.html