November 20, 2015

AIDS drug price jacker hears from the market

Good - By now you’ve heard about Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager whose company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of a life-saving AIDS medicine, Daraprim, from $13.50 to $750 a pill in September. The CEO defended his actions, saying, “If there was a company that was selling an Aston Martin at the price of a bicycle, and we buy that company and we ask to charge Toyota prices, I don’t think that that should be a crime.”

The last three months haven’t been so great for the “Pharma Bro.” He started a fight with Bernie Sanders, was undercut by Impiris, and financial reports show that his company lost big money in the third quarter of 2015. Although Turing reported a net gain of $5.6 million on Daraprim and blood pressure drug Vecamyl, overall the company was down $14.6 million for the quarter. The company defended its losses, attributing them to research-and-development efforts.

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