Once again, Big Pharma has raised the price of a life-saving medication and made it completely unaffordable for the people who need the medication to stay alive. Even more offensive this time is the drug company who is doing it was founded by a former hedge fund manager whose sole interest in raising the price is to make a fortune off the dying.
Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York purchased the right to Darapim, a drug designed to treat patients with cancer and AIDS. Immediately, the company raised the price from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill. That’s an increase of 5,000 percent. Darapim fights toxoplasmosis, a common food-borne disease that easily affects people with immune systems affected by AIDS or chemotherapy.
Even patients with insurance will have difficulty affording Darapim, said Judith Aberg, a spokesperson for the HIV Medicine Association. “This is a tremendous increase,” she added.
Insurance companies categorize expensive drugs as “specialty” drugs, which forces patients to pay thousands of dollars a year to receive treatment. Sixty million Americans carry the toxoplasma parasite, stated the Centers for Disease Control.
The University of Minnesota conducted a study and found that new cancer drugs commonly cost more than $100,000 a year per patient. That is outrageous. Turing Pharmaceuticals, and its hedge fund founder, has turned human life into a money-making commodity.
Below is a picture of Martin Shkreli, founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
For more on this story, visit USA Today “Company hikes price 5,000% for drug that fights complication of AIDS, cancer”
