Company Acquires Rights To Drug Used By AIDS/Cancer Patients; Raises Price From Under $14 To $750

Found on Techdirt on Monday, 21 September 2015
Browse Science

Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill last month, shortly after purchasing the rights to the drug from Impax Laboratories.

The patents behind the drug -- all granted between 1951 and 1954 -- should be dead. Conveniently for Turing (and other rights holders before it), no company is offering a generic version.

Turing, of course, realizes this price jump -- which puts one month's supply in the new vehicle range ($45-50,000) at minimum -- is going to be tough on those expected to pay for it, but claims to have support in place to help absorb some of the ridiculous increase.

This huge price jump has more to do with the man running Turing, Martin Shkreli. Shkreli doesn't have a background in pharmaceuticals, but he does know how to run a hedge fund. And he's used this expertise to become highly-unpopular very quickly.

Before another company will produce a cheap generic version and steal Shkreli's revenue, their R&D section will cough up an "improvement" which actually does nothing (the drug worked fine for 60+ years), but it will allow him to request a new patent to lock out competition. So, take his excuses explanations with some serious grain of salt.