# Hedge Fund Manager Buys Rights To Critical Drug, Hikes Price By 5000% **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 21, 2015, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144 "2015-09-21T20:02:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/1 "2015-09-21T20:02:28Z")
[Hedge Fund Manager Buys Rights To Critical Drug, Hikes Price By 5000%](http://www.alternet.org/economy/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-critical-drug-hikes-price-5000) > [@](#): > > Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection. > > The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is one reason why we need to nationalize the health care system and have universal, single-payer coverage. > [@](#): > > Medicaid and certain hospitals will be able to get the drug inexpensively under federal rules for discounts and rebates. But private insurers, Medicare and hospitalized patients would have to pay closer to the list price. Right there, the OMG! SOCIALIST! =8^O system costs a fraction of what it does for this drug under the FREEDOM! private health care system. Mr. Shkreli is killing people to make a buck. [Meanwhile…](http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/why-would-martin-shkreli-hike-old-drug-price-5000-only-moron-would-ask/2015-09-20) > [@](#): > > The Nasdaq biotech index dropped 1.8% in morning trading as fears spread that the uproar could lead to legislative changes that would affect the entire industry. Good. If you have to kill people to make money, you shouldn’t be in business. In my humble opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/2 "2015-09-21T20:14:56Z")
So the pill factory and its output don’t belong to them, and they can’t do what they want with it? Next question: if it’s 62 years old, then any patent has surely expired, so why isn’t someone else making this stuff? Seems like Turing is begging someone to compete with them. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/3 "2015-09-21T21:49:41Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Next question: if it’s 62 years old, then any patent has surely expired, so why isn’t someone else making this stuff? Seems like Turing is begging someone to compete with them. Because the startup capital to begin producing the drug is probably large, and no one wants to invest that startup capital because there’s no potential profit to repay it. If anyone were to start to compete with this guy, then he’d just lower the price back to something close to the marginal cost. This sort of market failure can affect any industry that has high fixed costs and low marginal costs. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/4 "2015-09-21T21:51:18Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Right there, the OMG! SOCIALIST! =8^O system costs a fraction of what it does for this drug under the FREEDOM! private health care system. Any single payer system I’ve seen has been modeled to act under the general guise of Medicare, not Medicaid. Medicare, according to your source, doesn’t receive any discount for that medication. ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/5 "2015-09-21T23:15:29Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Next question: if it’s 62 years old, then any patent has surely expired, so why isn’t someone else making this stuff? Seems like Turing is begging someone to compete with them. The FDA has been granting brief windows of market exclusivity to companies that take really old drugs and puts them through the testing necessary to meet modern regulatory standards. There is a whole category of drugs that are “generally recognized as safe”, that probably work as expected given decades of clinical experience. However, there may not have been any proper randomized controlled trials to prove efficacy, or optimum dosing. And the manufacturing standards may simply be “we’ve been making it like this for 70 years, and we probably haven’t killed anyone, but we really don’t know for sure…” When the FDA started this program, they probably imagined that a generic manufacturer would be happy to increase their market share from 40% to 100% at maybe double prices. A few patients and insurers would pay modestly higher prices, but they would now be using proven drugs. Along the way, maybe a few old standard treatments would be identified as ineffective, and the health care system as a whole would be more efficient because more money would be spent on evidence-based treatments. They certainly didn’t anticipate that someone would make a business model out of bald-faced rent seeking, finding old drugs with tiny markets where start up costs are high enough to discourage all competition… ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/6 "2015-09-21T23:18:21Z")
This is a time when Remo Williams would be very handy to have around. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/7 "2015-09-22T01:09:09Z")
I’ll call it - a bold move to get the federal government to buy the company and the drug. SF owns the Cable Cars because the private owners claimed to be losing money and would have to shut them down. Gee, I wonder how much they lost when the City had to buy them out… ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/8 "2015-09-22T02:03:27Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > This is a time when Remo Williams would be very handy to have around. If the TV show Leverage were still around, man… Then again, they always said there were real life stories they had to discard as story bases because they were too unbelievably evil, even though they’d actually happened? “The Bitter Pill Job”? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/9 "2015-09-22T02:40:14Z")
He’s a freaking Hedge Fund Manager. Get it? A Hedge Fund Manager! He’s hedging that you will spend every last nickle you have to keep your worthless existence from falling into oblivion. Wanna guess who’s gonna win? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/10 "2015-09-22T04:50:25Z")
This is absolutely insane. It’s one of the few drugs approved for use in pregnant women with malaria or toxoplasmosis, and whenever I’ve dispensed it (and it’s been a while), it was for toxo prophylaxis in people with AIDS. It’s not the first time he’s done something like this. He needs to be thrown in the slammer. > **[Martin Shkreli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli)** > > Martin Shkreli (/ˈʃkrɛli/; born March 17, 1983) is an American investor, fintech software developer, and former biotech founder and hedge fund manager. Shkreli is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare, the co-founder and former CEO of pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016. > In September 2015, Shkreli was widely criticized whe... I’d love to see some of the “vandalism” on that Wiki page before it was locked. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/11 "2015-09-22T09:24:02Z")
If Shkreli were willing to make any kind of argument – however garbage it may be – to justify this, it would be far better than his current reaction which seems to be to shrug and say “oh well, sucks to be poor and sick, but I gotta make money.” He’s a perfect example of the banality of true evil. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/12 "2015-09-22T11:31:36Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > The FDA has been granting brief windows of market exclusivity to companies that take really old drugs and puts them through the testing necessary to meet modern regulatory standards. Is this the case with pyrimethamine? I thought this was just a reduction of two U.S. manufacturers to one. Plenty of the stuff being made elsewhere, just not cert’d for import. Yet. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/13 "2015-09-22T12:07:43Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I’d love to see some of the “vandalism” on that Wiki page before it was locked. Click the “View history” tab. ---
**Author:** ![Gotlift](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9fc348/32.png) [@Gotlift](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gotlift)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/14 "2015-09-22T12:13:59Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Good. If you have to kill people to make money, you shouldn’t be in business. > > In my humble opinion. To make more money! This dickwad is already rich. I hope the fucker gets a drug resistant form of the disease, dies, goes to hell, and gets ass raped by Satan himself… and then punched in the mouth! ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/15 "2015-09-22T12:33:27Z")
Have the Board’s Hyperlibertarians weighed in? Market principles in action at their Godliest? > [@Munch](#): > > Click the “View history” tab. Yes, [for example](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Martin_Shkreli&type=revision&diff=682185439&oldid=682184963): > [@](#): > > In his previous life, he was Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/16 "2015-09-22T14:43:17Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > Is this the case with pyrimethamine? I thought this was just a reduction of two U.S. manufacturers to one. > > Plenty of the stuff being made elsewhere, just not cert’d for import. Yet. Can this happen? Can the FDA certify a drug like this for import? If so, it certainly seems like they should look for a safe and reliable foreign source and certify it, maybe with a pricing agreement with the manufacturer. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/17 "2015-09-22T14:49:44Z")
According to Wikipedia, tablets of this drug are available in India in a price range of U.S. $0.05–$0.10 each (3–7 rupees). > **[Pyrimethamine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine#Availability_and_price)** > > Pyrimethamine, sold under the brand name Daraprim among others, is a medication used with leucovorin (leucovorin is used to decrease side effects of pyrimethamine; it does not have intrinsic anti-parasitic activity) to treat the parasitic diseases toxoplasmosis and cystoisosporiasis. It is also used with dapsone as a second-line option to prevent Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia in people with HIV/AIDS. It was previously used for malaria but is no longer recommended due to resistance. Common si... ---
**Author:** ![Galanthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Galanthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galanthus)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/18 "2015-09-22T15:03:07Z")
This drug is made in the UK by GSK. 43p at tablet - so about 60 US cents. Since I know GSK markets any number of drugs in the US surely US hospitals should be able to get them from them? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/19 "2015-09-22T15:09:56Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Have the Board’s Hyperlibertarians weighed in? Market principles in action at their Godliest? I’m surprised the candidates in the Republican clown car aren’t racing to the microphone to proclaim that this how the free market is supposed to work and that it’s all Obama’s fault anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144/20 "2015-09-22T15:25:02Z")
“Well you know, a company’s only responsibility is to make money for its shareholders…” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hedge-fund-manager-buys-rights-to-critical-drug-hikes-price-by-5000/732144.md?page=2)