Martin Shkreli’s pharmaceutical company will significantly boost the
price of a lifesaving drug for the parasitic infection Chagas disease.
The ex-hedge fund manager announced last week in a conference call with
the company’s investors that it had purchased the Chagas medication, and
would price the treatment close to hepatitis C drugs. A full hepatitis C
treatment can cost patients a sky-high $80,000.
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. purchased the prescription drug benznidazole. The United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved it yet.
This medicine is already free for low-income patients through the CDC, according to New York Daily News. However, doctors are concerned that the Chagas disease drug’s price hike will make it unaffordable for uninsured people.
Dr. Sheba Meymandi is the director of a UCLA Chagas disease treatment center. She said that Shkreli’s price increase shows that that kindness does not exist in the drug industry anymore.
Shkreli’s company can earn millions of dollars since benznidazole is not FDA-approved. A government voucher program allows it to develop the medication and then sell it at a high profit margin.
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals’ spokesman Edward Painter claimed that the company has no plan to increase the drug’s price. He said that the price will be close to hepatitis C anti-viral medicines.
During the past year Shkreli earned the moniker “most hated man in America” by increasing prices of other drugs. That included a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) drug that was jacked up over 5,000 percent.
Shkreli also made headline news earlier this week when he purchased the only copy of the new Wu-Tang Clan hiphop album, according to Vox. The price tag was about $2 million.
Chagas disease is a tropical illness transmitted by the so-called “kissing beetle” with potentially fatal consequences, and it is estimated to affect over 300,000 Americans per year. And with a consortium of investors led by Shkreli having acquired 70 percent of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals’ shares to the tune of $3 million, the 32-year-old businessman said that he has applied for a priority-review voucher from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, allowing the government agency to prioritize approval of benznidazole, a Chagas disease treatment.
And guess what? Shkreli wants to increase that drug’s prices. BIG-TIME. He was obviously happy when he announced in an investors’ call last week that he will price benznidazole at a similar price point to hepatitis C treatments, which normally cost up to $80,000 for a complete treatment regimen. Currently, benznidazole is available as a free treatment for Chagas via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention application, but with Shkreli’s potential move, that could put treatment way out of the price range of the average patient.
Not surprisingly, doctors are already up in arms about what Shkreli plans to do with the drug. “He’s a hedge fund manager and medicine is going down the wrong road,” said UCLA Chagas treatment center director Dr. Sheba Meymandi. “Humanity in medicine has gone out the window.” And as benznidazole has yet to be approved in the United States, FDA approval could mean “hundreds of millions” of dollars for Turing, as Shkreli excitedly boasted in the above mentioned investors’ call.
Now Shkreli is in the eye of another storm over a similar effort involving a treatment for Chagas disease, a tropical parasitic malady that is potentially fatal. After an investor group led by him acquired 70 percent of the shares of the struggling KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. for a reported investment of at least $3.0 million last month, Shkreli said he’s applied to obtain a so-called priority-review voucher from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that could speed the agency’s approval of benznidazole, which is used to treat Chagas.
The issue raises questions about how the U.S. government promotes drug development and whether this is part of a larger problem that causes patients and their insurers to pay so much money for so many drugs. These FDA vouchers can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars when they’re acquired by one company and sold to another firm.
“The only reason for him to do this is to get the voucher and turn around and sell it,” Dr. Caryn Bern, a Chagas disease specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, told the New York Times.
The voucher system is aimed at promoting the development of drug treatments for rare conditions that pharmaceutical companies might otherwise ignore, but those vouchers can also be sold to other firms for hundreds of millions of dollars. Critics have claimed Shkreli is taking advantage of a loophole that allows the FDA to assign vouchers for drugs that already exist.
International Business Times asked Shkreli about his motives during one of his routine live-streaming sessions on YouTube Saturday. “I definitely am not doing this for the voucher. The drug’s not approved in the US, so that’s the concept,” he said. “[But] I would sell the voucher, yeah.”
Currently, benznidazole is available in the U.S. only from the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which offers the treatment for free through an experimental program. If Shkreli wins FDA approval of the drug — an apparently likely outcome given the drug is available elsewhere in the world for as little as $50 per course of treatment — he would set its price at as much as $100,000, he said during a conference call last week.
Doctors indicated such a move would be devastating to the few people who require the treatment. Although 300,000 people are estimated to carry the infection in the U.S. — almost all of them Latin American immigrants who came to the country with the parasite — only about 60 to 70 of them exhibit acute and potentially fatal forms of the disease, according to the CDC. Meanwhile, Shkreli has estimated between 3,000 and 7,000 people would require the treatment.
‘Most Hated Man In America’ Plans To Jack Up Price For Another Lifesaving Anti-Parasitic Drug
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that Chagas disease affects 300,000 Americans, and is spread by the droppings of the “kissing beetle.” It can cause heart failure or even death if a sufferer is not treated quickly.KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. purchased the prescription drug benznidazole. The United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved it yet.
This medicine is already free for low-income patients through the CDC, according to New York Daily News. However, doctors are concerned that the Chagas disease drug’s price hike will make it unaffordable for uninsured people.
Dr. Sheba Meymandi is the director of a UCLA Chagas disease treatment center. She said that Shkreli’s price increase shows that that kindness does not exist in the drug industry anymore.
Shkreli’s company can earn millions of dollars since benznidazole is not FDA-approved. A government voucher program allows it to develop the medication and then sell it at a high profit margin.
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals’ spokesman Edward Painter claimed that the company has no plan to increase the drug’s price. He said that the price will be close to hepatitis C anti-viral medicines.
During the past year Shkreli earned the moniker “most hated man in America” by increasing prices of other drugs. That included a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) drug that was jacked up over 5,000 percent.
Shkreli also made headline news earlier this week when he purchased the only copy of the new Wu-Tang Clan hiphop album, according to Vox. The price tag was about $2 million.
Turing’s Shkreli boasts he will raise price of Chagas treatment
They once called him the “most hated man in America,” and with good reason. Despite his status in the business world as a youthful prodigy, Turing Pharmaceuticals founder Martin Shkreli hasn’t exactly been using his talents for good, as he ruffled a lot of feathers in September, saying that he will hike the price of an older AIDS treatment from $13.50 to $750 after Turing acquired its rights. Now it would appear Shkreli is back, as he wants to hike prices for a potential lifesaving drug for Chagas disease.Chagas disease is a tropical illness transmitted by the so-called “kissing beetle” with potentially fatal consequences, and it is estimated to affect over 300,000 Americans per year. And with a consortium of investors led by Shkreli having acquired 70 percent of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals’ shares to the tune of $3 million, the 32-year-old businessman said that he has applied for a priority-review voucher from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, allowing the government agency to prioritize approval of benznidazole, a Chagas disease treatment.
And guess what? Shkreli wants to increase that drug’s prices. BIG-TIME. He was obviously happy when he announced in an investors’ call last week that he will price benznidazole at a similar price point to hepatitis C treatments, which normally cost up to $80,000 for a complete treatment regimen. Currently, benznidazole is available as a free treatment for Chagas via Centers for Disease Control and Prevention application, but with Shkreli’s potential move, that could put treatment way out of the price range of the average patient.
Not surprisingly, doctors are already up in arms about what Shkreli plans to do with the drug. “He’s a hedge fund manager and medicine is going down the wrong road,” said UCLA Chagas treatment center director Dr. Sheba Meymandi. “Humanity in medicine has gone out the window.” And as benznidazole has yet to be approved in the United States, FDA approval could mean “hundreds of millions” of dollars for Turing, as Shkreli excitedly boasted in the above mentioned investors’ call.
Martin Shkreli, Pharma’s Most Notorious Exec, Denies Move On Parasitic Disease Treatment Is To Game FDA Voucher System
Biotechnology-industry lightning rod Martin Shkreli is drawing fire again. The 32-year-old co-founder of the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management LLC and founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the ire of just about everybody when the news broke in September that he would jack up the cost of an old drug treatment used by AIDS patients to $750 from $13.50 after Turing acquired the rights to it.Now Shkreli is in the eye of another storm over a similar effort involving a treatment for Chagas disease, a tropical parasitic malady that is potentially fatal. After an investor group led by him acquired 70 percent of the shares of the struggling KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. for a reported investment of at least $3.0 million last month, Shkreli said he’s applied to obtain a so-called priority-review voucher from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that could speed the agency’s approval of benznidazole, which is used to treat Chagas.
The issue raises questions about how the U.S. government promotes drug development and whether this is part of a larger problem that causes patients and their insurers to pay so much money for so many drugs. These FDA vouchers can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars when they’re acquired by one company and sold to another firm.
“The only reason for him to do this is to get the voucher and turn around and sell it,” Dr. Caryn Bern, a Chagas disease specialist at the University of California at San Francisco, told the New York Times.
The voucher system is aimed at promoting the development of drug treatments for rare conditions that pharmaceutical companies might otherwise ignore, but those vouchers can also be sold to other firms for hundreds of millions of dollars. Critics have claimed Shkreli is taking advantage of a loophole that allows the FDA to assign vouchers for drugs that already exist.
International Business Times asked Shkreli about his motives during one of his routine live-streaming sessions on YouTube Saturday. “I definitely am not doing this for the voucher. The drug’s not approved in the US, so that’s the concept,” he said. “[But] I would sell the voucher, yeah.”
Currently, benznidazole is available in the U.S. only from the federal Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which offers the treatment for free through an experimental program. If Shkreli wins FDA approval of the drug — an apparently likely outcome given the drug is available elsewhere in the world for as little as $50 per course of treatment — he would set its price at as much as $100,000, he said during a conference call last week.
Doctors indicated such a move would be devastating to the few people who require the treatment. Although 300,000 people are estimated to carry the infection in the U.S. — almost all of them Latin American immigrants who came to the country with the parasite — only about 60 to 70 of them exhibit acute and potentially fatal forms of the disease, according to the CDC. Meanwhile, Shkreli has estimated between 3,000 and 7,000 people would require the treatment.
No comments:
Post a Comment