Saw this article, in my news feed, and could not believe certain people have found a new way to make money.
Will Greed have no end?
A new way to suck money out of the public start up a pharmaceutical company, find investors, buy up the rights to old drugs, used to treat rare conditions, then sky rocket the price, with the justification that it's not used that often, so we need more money, to make it worthwhile to our investors plus we need the money to do research to find new ways to improve this drug.
What was wrong with pharmaceutical companies who used the money they made off other drugs, to help pay for the cost of keeping a less used drug available to those, who desperately need it?
It seems the pharmaceutical companies don't want to be bothered by the drugs they don't make enough money on, so they can concentrate on the newer drugs, where they can gouge the people, until the patent is up and a generic is able to be made for it.
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.
Doxycycline, an antibiotic, went from $20 a bottle in October 2013 to $1,849 by April 2014, according to the two lawmakers.
While some price increases have been caused by shortages, others have resulted from a business strategy of buying old neglected drugs and turning them into high-priced “specialty drugs.”
Price increases could bring sales to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year if use remains constant.
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.
Cycloserine, a drug used to treat dangerous multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, was just increased in price to $10,800 for 30 pills from $500 after its acquisition by Rodelis Therapeutics. Scott Spencer, general manager of Rodelis, said the company needed to invest to make sure the supply of the drug remained reliable. He said the company provided the drug free to certain needy patients.
There are always minds out their thinking of ways they can make money as fast as they can. Who cares if they are taking advantage of people who need these rare drugs desperately. Jump below the fold, for more about this. I put the web address, of the article I looked at and wanted to share.
In August, two members of Congress investigating generic drug price increases wrote to Valeant Pharmaceuticals after that company acquired two heart drugs, Isuprel and Nitropress, from Marathon Pharmaceuticals and promptly raised their prices by 525 percent and 212 percent respectively. Marathon itself had acquired the drugs from another company in 2013 and had quintupled their prices, according to the lawmakers, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, and Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland.
Daraprim, known generically as pyrimethamine, is used mainly to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasite infection that can cause serious or even life-threatening problems for babies born to women who become infected during pregnancy, and also for those with compromised immune systems, like AIDS patients and certain cancer patients.
Martin Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing, said that the drug is so rarely used that the impact on the health system would be minuscule and that Turing would use the money it earns to develop better treatments for toxoplasmosis, with fewer side effects.
So the impact on the health system would be miniscule and he would use the money it earns to develop better treatments for it, with fewer side effects, why don't I believe this is his mission?
>“This isn’t the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business,” Mr. Shkreli said. He said that many patients use the drug for far less than a year and that the price was now more in line with those of other rare disease drugs.
“This is still one of the smallest pharmaceutical products in the world,” he said. “It really doesn’t make sense to get any criticism for this.”
Yes this is a greedy drug company, which was created, for the soul purpose of taking advantage of the situation. He could buy up these old rarely used drugs to treat rare conditions, jack up the price sky high and then limit a generic drug makers ability, to make a generic for it, all the while claiming he is not greedy. What a great plan!
This is not the first time the 32-year-old Mr. Shkreli, who has a reputation for both brilliance and brashness, has been the center of controversy. He started MSMB Capital, a hedge fund company, in his 20s and drew attention for urging the Food and Drug Administration not to approve certain drugs made by companies whose stock he was shorting.
In 2011, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which also acquired old neglected drugs and sharply raised their prices. Retrophin’s board fired Mr. Shkreli a year ago. Last month, it filed a complaint in Federal District Court in Manhattan, accusing him of using Retrophin as a personal piggybank to pay back angry investors in his hedge fund.
Don't look like he was genuinely thinking of the poor public having access to these rare drugs, to treat their highly rare condition. A few angry investors motivates a person to think creatively the quickest way to make a whole lot of money.
Some doctors questioned Turing’s claim that there is a need for better drugs, saying the side effects, while potentially serious, can be managed.
“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.
With the price now high, other companies could conceivably make generic copies, since patents have long expired. One factor that could discourage that option is that Daraprim’s distribution is now tightly controlled, making it harder for generic companies to get the samples they need for the required testing.
Of course we are not greedy. Why take the chance other companies might be willing to make a generic for it, making it a lot less expensive? Why take a chance and let them butt in and screw up your scam?
Some hospitals say they now have trouble getting the drug. “We’ve not had access to the drug for a few months,” said Dr. Armstrong at Emory, who also works at Grady Memorial Hospital, a huge public treatment center in Atlanta that serves many low-income patients.
But Dr. Rima McLeod, medical director of the toxoplasmosis center at the University of Chicago, said that Turing had been good about delivering drugs quickly to patients, sometimes without charge.
Let's make it look good, by giving some of them away free. After all, it makes us look like we are generous, even though we are bilking the public out of millions of dollars, by taking advantage of the situation.
Dr. Aberg of Mount Sinai said some hospitals will now find Daraprim too expensive to keep in stock, possibly resulting in treatment delays. She said that Mount Sinai is continuing to use the drug, but each use now requires a special review.
http://www.msn.com/...