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Martin Shkreli Abandons Promise to Lower HIV Drug Price He Gouged
Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli. (CBS)
Disreputable pharmaceutical boss Martin Shkreli has reneged on his promise to lower the price of an HIV medication he raised from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill.
The Guardian reports:
Shkreli’s company Turing Pharmaceuticals announced on Wednesday that it would provide volume discounts of its drug Daraprim to hospitals, but it appears that the company’s $750-a-pill price tag still stands.
Turing and Shkreli attracted a firestorm of criticism in September after it was revealed the company had raised the price of Daraprim, a 62-year-old treatment for parasitic infections, to $750 a pill from $13.50 after acquiring it. The medicine once sold for $1 a pill.
Shkreli pledged to lower the price of the drug in an interview shortly after being roundly pilloried by people including Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But in a press release Nancy Retzlaff, Turing’s chief commercial officer, said: “Drug pricing is one of the most complex parts of the healthcare industry. A drug’s list price is not the primary factor in determining patient affordability and access. A reduction in Daraprim’s list price would not translate into a benefit for patients.”
Instead Turing will offer reductions of up to 50% to hospitals, introduce new, smaller bottles of 30 tablets and lower costs and offer free sample starter packages starting in early 2016.
Read more here.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.
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Source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/martin_shkreli_abandons_promise_to_lower_hiv_drug_price_he_gouged_20151126/
