Price Gouging- Classic example

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I wonder if we should just nationalize insurance companies and drug manufacturers to protect public interest. It should be criminal to do stuff like this, along with much of what PBMs do too. I understand high name brand costs to recoup spending into drug development, but price gouging is just wrong.
 
Greed at its finest. Just because it is not illegal, doesn't mean you should do it.
 
nothing new. years back acth went up from like 1000/vial to 110K/vial or something, simply b/c they realized they could.
 
When people don't buy it, the price will go back down...the solution to that is to simply move to other treatments. When those tactics aren't profitable, people won't do them anymore
 
Figures that a hedge fund manager would come up with such a rear-end-brained idea.

He's not old enough to know what an impact AIDS caused to society, and that's who I've always dispensed it for - AIDS patients using it for toxo prophylaxis.

$13.50 a tablet was bad enough.
 
WVUPharm2007 said:
The CEO of that company is one of the biggest dinguses on the planet. Seriously, look him up.
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the title for being the biggest dingus belongs to walgreens CEO. the one who came up with the idea of drive-thru for pharmacy.
 
sb247 said:
When people don't buy it, the price will go back down...the solution to that is to simply move to other treatments. When those tactics aren't profitable, people won't do them anymore
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What if there is no alternative?

What if the drug has been shown to be most effective?
 
Why doesn't a manufacturer come in and make a generic and offer it for $13 a pill just like before? That is pretty good money and great PR.
 
Someone arrest this guy right now. He belongs behind bars.
 
BMBiology said:
Why doesn't a manufacturer come in and make a generic and offer it for $13 a pill just like before? That is pretty good money and great PR.
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Apparently it was only $1 a few years before. This dude bought it from the the company that jacked it up x13 so he could jack it x55. Greed knows no bounds...
 
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I guess Bactrim is evidence category BI for toxo, and atovaquone BII.

It's more of a PITA for the outpatient folks to get the administrative ducks in a row with the mail order/Wags specialty pharmacy....smaller community hospitals will probably just say **** it and go 2nd line therapy.

Someone needs to take a brick to that dingus's car or something. I'd be very happy reading that in the WSJ in the morning.
 
He's claiming on Twitter that a new drug is needed because a two patient case study exists somewhere (didn't say where, mind you) where two people with myasthenia gravis died taking the drug to treat their infection.

That apparently justifies the ridiculous added cost to the healthcare system this guy will cause.

This guy is either a fricking ***** or just doesn't give enough of a damn to come up with reasonable excuses for his company's behavior. I think he's just a lazy sociopath.
 
He doesn't care about anyone in the world except for himself. Selfish, greedy, ugly, piece of shi*. When I wonder why things are wrong in the world, people like this are the reason why. Something has to be done to stop this, and to prevent it from happening again and again in the US health care system. This guy is as cold as a zombie, and has no warm blood flowing in him.
 
look at vasopressin - went from $1 a vial to $3 and now to $88 a vial -

same type of BS
 
Yeah, Marty sucks. He should get his comeuppance soon: his old company fired him and is now suing him:

From Forbes . . .

Retrophin filed a federal lawsuit against Shkreli on Monday in New York alleging that he created the biotech and took it public solely to provide stock to MSMB investors when the hedge fund became insolvent. The suit seeks more than $65 million in damages and a requirement that Shkreli disgorge all the compensation he received from Retrophin during the time he acted as a “faithless servant” to it, as the claim reads. Turing Pharmaceuticals, another biotech startup that Shkreli founded this past February, is not named in the suit.

Much of Retrophin’s claims center around a transaction the company alleges Shkreli spearheaded. In early 2011, the suit reads, Shkreli caused MSMB to make a “disastrous trade” in Merrill Lynch. “MSMB Capital lost over $7 million, and was left virtually bankrupt. Shkreli did not tell his MSMB Capital investors that he had lost all their money as a result” of the transaction, the claim states.

Shortly thereafter, the lawsuit alleges, Shkreli created Retrophin and sent a letter to MSMB shareholders saying he would dissolve the investment company, but that the original investors had doubled their money. He even included a chart to back up that assertion, but the chart was false, the lawsuit alleges. Several MSMB investors griped that Shkreli did not make promised distributions to them, and at least one complained to the SEC, it says.

The suit alleges a confounding chain of events that included a reverse merger and share exchange, a lawsuit filed by Merrill Lynch against Shkreli and MSMB, and an attempt by Shkreli to redeem his MSMB stakeholders by giving them stock in Retrophin. “Ten MSMB investors ultimately threatened to sue Shkreli, report him to regulators, and contact the media unless he gave them more for their MSMB investments,” it says. Retrophin paid out over $2.7 million in cash and issued more than 590,000 shares of Retrophin stock to appease those investors, the suit alleges.

Retrophin’s description of the events is “completely inaccurate,” he said. “Yes there was a trade, but it certainly was not the way it was described in the lawsuit. It’s distorted and out of context. I don’t know what basis Retrophin has in any of these claims.” He added that he believes it was illegal for Retrophin to access his MSMB e-mails because it was a private hedge fund.

Shkreli said he intends to file several lawsuits against Retrophin, including one claiming breach of contract. “The company hasn’t paid me close to $50 million that it owes me in severance,” he said. “If you read my employment agreement, the company owes me roughly $1.5 million of the company’s stock, back pay and other damages.”
 
This guy almost sounds like he should also be investigated WRT any local missing persons cases.
 
This is where there is a disconnect between Medicare and industry. if one tie reimbursement to performance or inflation, one need to hold the standard across the board. Meanwhile hospitals are getting hit on both ends, less pay and rising cost.

I say make up your freaking mind. Don't screw the people who are trying to do some good on both ends.
 
You can tell things are not going your way when PhRMA (PhRMA!) comes out against you:

In what was perhaps one of the most stinging criticisms, John J. Castellani, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the drug industry's trade group, disavowed the company and Shkreli. “PhRMA typically does not comment on matters related to individual company products or product pricing decisions," he said in a statement. But, "Turing Pharmaceutical is not a member of PhRMA and we do not embrace either their recent actions or the conduct of their CEO.”

Ouch!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...d-4000-percent-but-would-not-say-by-how-much/
 
xiphoid2010 said:
This is where there is a disconnect between Medicare and industry. if one tie reimbursement to performance or inflation, one need to hold the standard across the board. Meanwhile hospitals are getting hit on both ends, less pay and rising cost.

I say make up your freaking mind. Don't screw the people who are trying to do some good on both ends.
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So true. See that the thing, we don't have true capitalism here in the US, nor do we have true socialism. Instead we have a weird mixture that often takes the worst of each, and mixes it with corporatism....leading to a dysfunctional, mess. Things could certainly be worse, but they could be a better as well.
 


Not capitalist, not socialist. Squish, just like grape....
 
BidingMyTime said:
So true. See that the thing, we don't have true capitalism here in the US, nor do we have true socialism. Instead we have a weird mixture that often takes the worst of each, and mixes it with corporatism....leading to a dysfunctional, mess. Things could certainly be worse, but they could be a better as well.
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You just say "mixed economy."
 
Well to play devils advocate. I just went to run some numbers.

Daraprim sales in 2014 was about $9 mil. He bought it for $55 mil.

In business investing, eg, buying a hospital, a sales price of 4x annual revenues is typical. He paid $55 mil which is high by conventional measures, but then he wasn't planning on running it conventionally.

Amortize the $55 mil plus interest over 4 years, he would need at least $15 mil/yr to make the buy make sense, even if he kept everything stats quo. Which means he have to increase the price >60% to make revenue $15 mil a year, but knowing that demand would fall as price increase, he would have to go 2-3x price increase at minimum.

So if I put myself in his shoes, and I ready to toss my moral compass out of the window (and spend an eternity in hell) then one is faced with only 2 options once you already signed on the deal. (1) increase the price by 2-3x and likely made a pariah and not be left with much of a margin for big profits, or (2) sell your soul because its already damned, and jack up the price like crazy, knowing that it will likely catch flak but have room to retreat some and still make a big profit while throwing the attack dogs(politicians) a bone to let them claim an easy victory and get off your ass.

The guy is slime, but his strategy is sound.
 
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xiphoid2010 said:
Well to play devils advocate. I just went to run some numbers.

Daraprim sales in 2014 was about $9 mil. He bought it for $55 mil.

In business investing, eg, buying a hospital, a sales price of 4x annual revenues is typical. He paid $55 mil which is high by conventional measures, but then he wasn't planning on running it conventionally.

Amortize the $55 mil plus interest over 4 years, he would need at least $15 mil/yr to make the buy make sense, even if he kept everything stats quo. Which means he have to increase the price >60% to make revenue $15 mil a year, but knowing that demand would fall as price increase, he would have to go 2-3x price increase at minimum.

So if I put myself in his shoes, and I ready to toss my moral compass out of the window (and spend an eternity in hell) then one is faced with only 2 options once you already signed on the deal. (1) increase the price by 2-3x and likely made a pariah and not be left with much of a margin for big profits, or (2) sell your soul because its already damned, and jack up the price like crazy, knowing that it will likely catch flak but have room to retreat some and still make a big profit while throwing the attack dogs(politicians) a bone to let them claim an easy victory and get off your ass.

The guy is slime, but his strategy is sound.
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Bull feathers..... First this is not the only drug they have, Second, just because he was dumb enough to overpay for the drug, does not mean he can jack up the price by a gazillion percent. The only correct thing you said is that he is scum. If I were to call him an a-hole, it would be an insult to a-holes everywhere......
 
Old Timer said:
Bull feathers..... First this is not the only drug they have, Second, just because he was dumb enough to overpay for the drug, does not mean he can jack up the price by a gazillion percent. The only correct thing you said is that he is scum. If I were to call him an a-hole, it would be an insult to a-holes everywhere......
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Of course he was out to make some money, but why he "overpaid "(only when measured by the conventional, non-price gauging plan) is more or less irrelevant.

Remember that the people he bought daraprim was the same type of scum themselves, jacking the price up from $1/pill to $13.5. So you can bet they weren't going to sell it to the next a-hole for cheap. Now jacking the price up 13.5x is just as bad, you can still expect $13.50 to fly under the radar. But when taking the price up by same kind of multiples to be 3 digits/pill, you should plan for some backlash. And I think he likely built that in. You can bet he'll lower the price to something like $199/pill, and Hillary can claim victory "I lowered the price by more than 2/3!" Newspapers move on to the next Kardashian farting or tripping non-news, while society goes down drain a little more.

The bottom line is, as long as its legal to pull these price gauging moves, there won't be a shortage of a-holes who will line up for the next opportunity. That's the darkside of capitalism.
 
xiphoid2010 said:
The bottom line is, as long as its legal to pull these price gauging moves, there won't be a shortage of a-holes who will line up for the next opportunity. That's the darkside of capitalism.
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Aint that the truth.....
 
I've really come around on this: Martin Shkreli is an angel wearing the devil's clothing. (Hang with me here.) Since his move to increase the price of daraprim by over 5,500%, the unmitigated greed exhibited by Turing Pharmaceuticals and others like them are getting much more widespread attention than they ever had before.

Valeant is getting some tough questions now about their pricing structure: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/b...riates-patients-and-lawmakers.html?ref=health

The usual, non-exorbitant price increases (10%/year) that we in pharmacy have gotten used to and accept as normal business practices are beginning to be questioned; Pfizer is being called out by Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ces-on-133-drugs-this-year-and-it-s-not-alone

The industry as a whole is getting scrutiny: http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion...companies-charge-so-much/stories/201510040021

This will probably be a topic in the 2016 Presidential election, which itself is astonishing.

Martin Shkreli: savior.
 
Valeant is the next company that needs to be exposed to the public. They have done the exact same thing with dozens of drugs. The best is Glumetza at best a me-too-drug. June 2015 it was $1000 for thirty, now it is over $5,000!
 
sosoo said:
the title for being the biggest dingus belongs to walgreens CEO. the one who came up with the idea of drive-thru for pharmacy.
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Who is he? Do you think the drive thru is the worst decision he made?
 
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