Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli forced to cave
32 year old Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli cornered the market on the drug Daraprim. The drug is used to fight toxoplasmosis. He purchased the rights to sell the drug and then raised the price 5555%+.
Martin Shkreli was all but crucified on throughout social media and the Internet. Politicians got involved.
Inasmuch as Martin Shkreli said he was not going to reduce the price of the drug, the pressure was too much.
“It is very easy to see a large drug price increase and say gosh, those people must be gouging, but when you find out the company is not really making any money what does that mean?” Shkreli said. “It is easy to villainize people and obviously we are in an election cycle where this is a very very tough topic for people and it’s very sensitive.”
Martin Shkreli was being very disingenuous. It is common knowledge that his business model is the purchase drugs of this type, patent expired with one manufacture, and then raise the price. It is a typical tactic.
These are guys that are using their capital not to produce anything knew, but to use the sweat and hard work of others, the inventors, the ones who really created the product.
I must reiterate, after a drug patent expires, that drug should be manufactured by the government or some non-profit. This would stop gouging cold.