Hedge fund d1ck raises price of AIDS and Protozoan medication by 5000%

EasycomeEasygo · 21-09-2015 11:55PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Oh maybe it wasn't as profitable as it could have been. There's no denying that. I'm saying it doesn't justify raising the cost 5000%.

You understand the process of making a drug? The most expensive part is research and development. That had already been paid out by the previous company. They only pay for synthesis and marketing. The previous company paid out significantly more cost yet sold it for 5000% less.

Thats like saying do you understand the process of making a car? Shur Henry Ford already did all that there's no need to go improving things like safety and whatnot!!

Overheal · 21-09-2015 11:56PM

goose2005 wrote: »

I tend to assume that any Twitterstorm news story is about 90% false. It saves time.

I first heard this through consumerist.com - daily read for me anyway.

Capt'n Midnight · 21-09-2015 11:58PM

steddyeddy wrote: »

You understand the process of making a drug? The most expensive part is research and development.

Dear lord no. R&D , which by the way includes every possible expense they can write off against tax, is only a fraction of what goes to profit and marketing

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223

That had already been paid out by the previous company. They only pay for synthesis and marketing. The previous company paid out significantly more cost yet sold it for 5000% less.

oh yeah , this is why patents on life saving treatments are not in the public interest.

It should be simple to calculate the excess mortality this will cause by comparing the cost increases to existing health budgets.

Kurtosis · 22-09-2015 12:00AM

This doesn't appears this guy has been accused of underhand tactics in relation to pharmaceuticals:

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to investigate the short-selling activities of hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli – and possibly others – to determine whether he has illegally manipulated stock prices in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

http://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-filings/entry/us-attorney-investigate-short-seller-martin-shkreli

The piece also contains a particularly prophetic quote:

“Mr. Shkreli seems more interested in lining his own pockets than in fostering groundbreaking medical advances,”

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:00AM

EasycomeEasygo wrote: »

Thats like saying do you understand the process of making a car? Shur Henry Ford already did all that there's no need to go improving things like safety and whatnot!!

????????

toptom · 22-09-2015 12:05AM

Seems like good business sense to me. Use the profits to create more life saving medicines.

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:05AM

penguin88 wrote: »

This doesn't appears this guy has been accused of underhand tactics in relation to pharmaceuticals:

http://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-filings/entry/us-attorney-investigate-short-seller-martin-shkreli

The piece also contains a particularly prophetic quote:

Yea I've seen that alright. He's not the most trust worthy guy. Business grads shouldn't run companies like this.

Here's a slimy quote from the guy himself:

"We needed to turn a profit on the drug," Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli told Bloomberg, insisting that it was not overpriced compared to its peers. "This drug saves your life for $50,000," he said.

The bit in bold feels like blackmail.

Kurtosis · 22-09-2015 12:07AM

EasycomeEasygo wrote: »

I thought you said you watched the video, he said he want to make a new better version of the drug, wheres the money for that going to come from? He already paid 11 times the turnover for it.

Actually his claim of $5 million turnover appears to be inaccurate (or at best outdated). According to this its sales in 2014 were $9.9 million, excluding hospital inpatient use.

osarusan · 22-09-2015 12:07AM

EasycomeEasygo wrote: »

he said he want to make a new better version of the drug, wheres the money for that going to come from?

No doubt that will be reasonably priced too.

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:08AM

Here's a good summary of what's happening. They're increasing the price because they own the monopoly on the drug now.

In some cases, the raw materials to make the molecules are in short supply because the drugs were developed years ago or the company has created a unique formulation that no one else has, both of which allow the companies to raise prices. In some cases, more insured patients under the Affordable Care Act have increased demand.
But very commonly, as in the case of Daraprim, the price increase is triggered by one company buying another and resetting the prices because they now have a monopoly on the most common treatment for a given disease.
"In the case for drugs for rare diseases where the market is small, you're more likely to see this behavior because the market is not large enough to sustain a large number of producers," Frank Lichtenberg, a professor of business in the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Management Program at Columbia University, told CBS News. "Therefore an incumbent can try to exploit its market power."
The companies offer discounts for patients who cannot afford the medication, as required for public health care payers. But some medical providers say applying for the discount can be complicated.

Kurtosis · 22-09-2015 12:12AM

EasycomeEasygo wrote: »

Thats like saying do you understand the process of making a car? Shur Henry Ford already did all that there's no need to go improving things like safety and whatnot!!

Well if his company develops a more safe and effective drug, then they benefit from a patent-protected period of exclusivity to recoup R&D costs and reap profits from the discovery. That's the incentive to improve treatments.

Eugene Norman · 22-09-2015 12:15AM

EasycomeEasygo wrote: »

I thought you said you watched the video, he said he want to make a new better version of the drug, wheres the money for that going to come from? He already paid 11 times the turnover for it.

I don't think anybody believes he is going to invest in making a better drug. He's making money.

Eugene Norman · 22-09-2015 12:18AM

toptom wrote: »

Seems like good business sense to me. Use the profits to create more life saving medicines.

Oh it's just so altruistic.

What though if he just wants to make a quick buck until the patents run out and has no intention of creating new drugs ( where is the indication that he or his company have that skill or R&D capacity? In the OP steddy eddy said "He raised the price 20 fold despite not pumping any further money into research" on the previous drug).

That would also be a good thing in the free market mantra of some libertarian commentators here? Right?

Greed is good.

Overheal · 22-09-2015 12:20AM

steddyeddy wrote: »

????????

Sarcasm; re-read

While, EasycomeEasygo, there is some logic to advancing the drug, that doesn't justify a 5000% price hike. Unless the goal is to drastically reduce the number of people demanding the drug..

At the same time that Shkreli argues the need to dramatically improve the usefulness of this drug, the problem generics face is the relatively low number of patients for this drug and thats an economic problem in tooling up production. From Consumerist:

Generic companies could jump in and make a lower-cost version but with so few patients there may not be much of an incentive to make that investment. Additionally, right before the Turing acquisition, Daraprim went to a controlled-distribution model, meaning other drug makers would have difficulty getting samples they need to make a generic.

So, here is what is going to happen. Shkreli is a hedge fund manager who is largely a giant douchenozzle because he trolls the US financial system - legally. Accused of inflating bio and pharma markets, previously. This is his 'James Bond' plan to get rich: take one of the least expensive life-saving drugs on the market, sweep in and buy it. Once you have that drug, jack up the price and create an artificial bubble of peak demand. This drives generic producers into the market and you as Martin Shkreli get to fcuk them in two of two holes: the first is as the Hedgefund manager you bet on the futures of the pharma industry and rake in huge inflated inraday trading profits, and the second is as a pharmaceutical ceo who will sell the generics the samples for probably about $150k a tablet - 'because fcuk your dying aunt, I want another home in the Hamptons, that's why'.

And even as I type that out, if you're more sociopathic than most people (it's really a sliding scale that goes from 'empathizing with a cat' to 'I want to enslave humanity if it benefits me'), then that doesn't even sound like a terrible plan. Except he and others will have forgotten about the snag in this plan: it revolves around a lifesaving medicine, and we're then and now talking about people, not dollars. He did not think this through clearly and he is (or at least should) get rightly fcuked over somehow over this.

edit:

steddyeddy wrote: »

Here's a good summary of what's happening. They're increasing the price because they own the monopoly on the drug now.

Yeah that

Overheal · 22-09-2015 12:31AM

penguin88 wrote: »

Well if his company develops a more safe and effective drug, then they benefit from a patent-protected period of exclusivity to recoup R&D costs and reap profits from the discovery. That's the incentive to improve treatments.

Which is FINE fundamentally..-ish.

Many mechanisms in society do not work well when exposed to sociopathy. In cases like you're talking about - where there is organic growth in that market/industry it is part of the social design. But when you forcibly and artificially create a new economic bubble for the sake of profit that model collapses and all you have left behind are patents for the shape of a button.

Zzippy · 22-09-2015 12:34AM

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Patents on older drugs run out. There'll be a generic form along shortly.

Some drugs* cannot be synthesised so easily. Drugs such as monoclonal antibodies are derived from cultures developed by the R&D company and as such cannot be replicated by a rival company, so no generic can be made without repeating the whole R&D process and hopefully getting the same result.

*I don't know if this drug will be easy to synthesise a generic form

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:38AM

Zzippy wrote: »

Some drugs* cannot be synthesised so easily. Drugs such as monoclonal antibodies are derived from cultures developed by the R&D company and as such cannot be replicated by a rival company, so no generic can be made without repeating the whole R&D process and hopefully getting the same result.

*I don't know if this drug will be easy to synthesise a generic form

This is the generic form. They have a monopoly on it because not a lot of companies invested in making the generic form.

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:41AM

As Overheal said this guy is a sociopath and certain elements of society should be protected from that. Here's what happened during his time as CEO of a previous company:

Retrophin was created in February 2011 as a potential treatment for Muscular Dystrophy.[6] It was created and run from the offices of MSMB Capital as a portfolio company. Retrophin is a biotechnology company dedicated to creating treatments for orphan diseases.[3] He was fired by the Board of Retrophin and replaced as CEO by Stephen Aselage in September 2014. Retrophin filed a $65 million dollar lawsuit against Shkreli, claiming he breached his duty of loyalty to the biopharmaceutical company in a long-running dispute over his use of company funds.[7][8]

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:44AM

Zzippy wrote: »

Some drugs* cannot be synthesised so easily. Drugs such as monoclonal antibodies are derived from cultures developed by the R&D company and as such cannot be replicated by a rival company, so no generic can be made without repeating the whole R&D process and hopefully getting the same result.

*I don't know if this drug will be easy to synthesise a generic form

The generic can be the same formula as the original so drug screening would have already been carried out. As would most of the R and D including the complex screening for drug targets.

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:52AM

Also in question is the need for a better version of the drug. Article from the "clickbait" New York Times.

Some doctors questioned Turing’s claim that there was a need for better drugs, saying the side effects, while potentially serious, could be managed.
Advertisement

“I certainly don’t think this is one of those diseases where we have been clamoring for better therapies,” said Dr. Wendy Armstrong, professor of infectious diseases at Emory University in Atlanta.

Martin's rebuttals to this? He said people still die of this illness and theirs is the only drug. In other words ours ins the only drug so we can raise it.

22-09-2015 12:53AM

toptom wrote: »

Seems like good business sense to me. Use the profits to create more life saving medicines.

That no-one else can afford :rolleyes:

steddyeddy · 22-09-2015 12:57AM

Look at the video in the article. Please for the love of science this guy should die a horrible agonizing death.

asherbassad · 22-09-2015 12:59AM

steddyeddy wrote: »

Daraprim is the trade name for a drug which treats diseases like Malaria and Toxoplasmosis, Both diseases result from infections from parasites but AIDS victims require Daraprim because they are a lot more susceptible to toxoplasmosis. Martin Shkrelihedge fund manager owns Turing pharmaceuticals which bought Daraprim. He then raised the price from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill. This is a drug essential to AIDs victims. It's also an old drug with no new research aimed at improving it and it's synthesis isn't price intensive.

The same guy was previously CEO of Retrophin which previously raised the price of Thiola, a drug used to treat a rare kidney disease resulting from incorrect metabolism of cysteine an amino acid. He raised the price 20 fold despite not pumping any further money into research ect.

Should this guy be allowed to get away with this? A lot of new biotech industries are run by scientists simply because the business heads had no clue how to run the business. These people tend to be in it for the right reasons. Should we have a situation like this where the lives of hundreds of thousands of people can be made a whole lot difficult just because a billionaire wants to make a lot more money.?

Edit: Link added

Is it illegal to publish his address? After all, if the man is helping people then he ought to be commended.

AngryHippie · 22-09-2015 01:43AM

steddyeddy wrote: »

He's a slimy piece of shit.

FYP

FanadMan · 22-09-2015 02:29AM

Gatling wrote: »

Big business ,Big Pharma.

Sure wasn't the government paying way over the odds for medicines here yet the same medicines were readily available in other states for alot cheaper

And some of them are made here which is worse.

Capt'n Midnight · 22-09-2015 08:05AM

Overheal wrote: »

Which is FINE fundamentally..-ish.

Many mechanisms in society do not work well when exposed to sociopathy. In cases like you're talking about - where there is organic growth in that market/industry it is part of the social design. But when you forcibly and artificially create a new economic bubble for the sake of profit that model collapses and all you have left behind are patents for the shape of a button.

Our ancestors used reciprocal altruism as a form of insurance.

Do unto others, because chances are you'll need the favour back.

Nowadays if you have enough money / power there is no negative feedback from being incredibly selfish.

Volkswagen lost a fifth of it's share value yesterday because they got caught running a scam that was almost certainly approved by people who got bonuses based on the share value. The company has 592,586 employees who will be directly affected.

ScouseMouse · 22-09-2015 08:20AM

I shudder when I read ****e like that. I take 7 tablets a day and an injection which is getting bigger by the week.

What I would do to him I couldn't say here. My feeling for him are akin to Kelvin McKensie

Ignatius in bloom · 22-09-2015 08:29AM

Big pharma, the biggest cancer of them all.

Eugene Norman · 22-09-2015 09:25AM

Ignatius in bloom wrote: »

Big pharma, the biggest cancer of them all.

Except this is small pharma. GSK were ok

Permabear · 22-09-2015 09:34AM

This post has been deleted.

Hedge fund d1ck raises price of AIDS and Protozoan medication by 5000%

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