Discussion for article #240893
I’d like to think it was shame. I’d like to think it was in reaction to the outrage by the public. I really think the other pharmaceutical companies called him and said “Look, if you keep this up we are all going to be regulated, so cut it out. The public can call for your head. WE can make generics of every single one of your generic products and undercut you so badly that you never sell another pill.”
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And people wonder why insurance rates are high if insurers have to cover the cost of arbitrary increases. I do actually get the reason that some drugs, especially new ones, are so pricey. The companies invest a ton of money in these things and only every so often do they produce something useful.
However, this one made no sense. I understand if you get the rights to a given drug and you are profit drivin than you want to make some money, but darn. That was a pretty huge price increase. If the drug has been on the market for long it does not even make sense. Not sure how long it is before the generic came out of that drug but if you mark up the price and they have a generic than you more than killed all profit right then and there. I know often it is around a decade or so. Maybe with such a cheap drug a generic was not initially needed?
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This is yet another illustration of the failure of the free market when applied to health care. If GM raises the price of a Malibu to $273,000, the result is simple - no one buys them. The demand is elastic. But health care is different. If your life depends on a drug that’s manufactured by only one company, you don’t realistically have the option of saying, “Nope, too expensive. I’m not buying it any more.”
Single payer health care, and a heavily-regulated prescription drug industry, are the only way to go. The trick is to pull that off without stifling innovation. Developing new drugs is wildly expensive, and high risk. If you take away the possibility of reward, you don’t get any new drugs. I’m not sure how we can achieve a balance.
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It’s my understanding that part of the outrage against this sociopathic sh*thead was that he not only bought the drug as it was off patent but, in addition, he prevented any other companies from making a generic version by preventing them from buying up mass amounts of the drug to copy for generic production. He truly wanted to corner the market on this one drug and, if you couldn’t afford it, too bad you die. He genuinely could care less. If you saw the interview with him on CNBC, you would have seen a true sociopath who has very little ability to mask his very twisted belief system.
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He really is a piece of work, isn’t he?
I’m reminded of the line from Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane:
Well, it’s no trick to make a lot of money… if all you want to do is make a lot of money.
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I was truly gobsmacked at just how truly deviant he came across. I mean, look, I understand that this country was founded on capitalist principles from the time the first White European set foot on this soil but DAMN already! This young piece of excrement came across as the sort of ultra rich sociopath who would hunt down human beings for sport. And think it was funny.
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He came across as young Nathan Thurm who just caught sight of the buzzsaw he was walking into. A good example of the “closed-loop” mentality–before it hit the news, he was probably getting hi-fives from all the other young reptiles.
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“We’ve agreed to lower the price of Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit,” Shkreli told ABC.
He continued: “Which means I’m not going to be able to afford my new Bugatti for an additional 4 months. So you can see who the real victim is here.”
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I’m not sure a generic would need to buy mass quantities of the drug as the chemistry is disclosed in the patent as well as other information in FDA docs. It’s like a 60 year old drug. The reason why a generic wasn’t made is because it is just simply not profitable. Pouring money into copying the drug just isn’t worth the cost.
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Society needs to be protected from this sociopath.
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This guy is a prime example of what “free markets” and “trickle down” economics can produce: Greedy, immoral jerks.
It’s disgusting that the so called greatest country on earth is also the only one that allows its drug industry to play roulette for profit with its people’s health and their lives.
Goddamn Milton Freeman and his selfish, inhumane, fucked up economic theory. And goddamn this arrogant asshole along with him.
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That’s not really how patents work. The trade-off of getting 20 years of protection for your invention in order to recoup your investment is that it’s completely public. You can pull the patent and get all the information you need to copy it. Once the patent expires, game on. Drug companies just haven’t seen the profitability in creating a generic where only 5,000 people use the drug.
The other option is to go trade secret (this is how Coke protects its formula). The risk here is someone gets your product and reverse engineers it. Once they discover the formula (not just ingredients but timing, order, etc), then you lose your sole rights to it. Pharmaceuticals would not survive this type of protection because reverse engineering would be pretty easy to do. You just get a pill and take it apart. So if someone breaks your formula after a year, too bad.
oh come on… it’s a nice immigrant story of unbelievable success… (parents are from albania/croatia)… i’m surprised he hasn’t offered that defense…
and you’ll notice that the new price point hasn’t been revealed… why, i bet he’s dropped it all the way down to $700…
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The company that sparked an angry backlash after it raised the price of a drug for treating a deadly parasitic infection by more than 5,000 percent says it will roll back some of the increase.
“Some” has a lot of rollback room when the rollup is 5K%. I’m guessing a pullback to a 4000% price increase.
“We’ve agreed to lower the price of Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit,” Shkreli told ABC.
The problem with the lack of specificity is that this guy is a real, genuine, honest-to-god sociopath.
Turing . . .
This guy is the company. Acting like this was the idea of some anonymous management layer or board of directors is disingenuous. He developed this scheme, then took over the company.
. . . had said it would use profits to improve the drug’s formulation
Translation: he wanted to develop some minor tweak like a time release encapsulation that he could patent and then take the unpatented version off the market
and develop new, better drugs for the infection.
Translation: he wanted to develop a “me-too” drug that may or may not have been more safe and efficacious but that would be patentable. The real problem being that doctors seem to be unanimous in agreeing that this drug works fine and that there’s no need for additional or better drugs to treat the conditions in question.
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“Don’t mess with our gravy train or we will bury you.”
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He seems to be the new version of the patent troll. Companies that do nothing to create new products, but weaponize the process to make money. I realize the patent has expired, but this seems like the next variation. Buy a product a certain segment can’t do without and jack the prices until you make an obscene profit.
I think this is exactly right. Patent troll.
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He had a smirk that would make Dubya proud. Sociopath.
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Greedy little shitbags like Martin Shkreli are going to be the prime mover behind forcing the US to regulate prices in the pharma market. In a way, I thank him.
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Social Media ftw!
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