Martin Shkreli, nicknamed “pharma bro” by many, is in jail after he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding investors. Shkreli is not in prison because his former company Turing Pharmaceuticals hiked the price of Daraprim by 5,000 percent overnight—from $13.50 to $750 per pill—he’s in trouble because of other things, not the least of which is that he was an easily detestable fall-guy for the rest of the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies have acted the same way Shkreli has and gotten considerably less ink for it, forget about any consequences. Kaiser Health News gives us an update on how much actual “justice” patients who need Daraprim are receiving.
But Daraprim, which costs pennies to make and is used to treat the parasitic infection toxoplasmosis — which is rare in the United States — still retails for more than $750 per pill, according to drug website GoodRx.com. Vyera did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The continued high price of the drug is a cautionary tale to those who hope that public shaming of a few “bad actors” can curb escalating drug prices, because the problem is rooted in the market’s underlying financial incentives.
And while Shkreli sits deservedly in prison, other less visible people continue to make lots of money doing very similar things.
Even with generic-drug competition, costs don’t always drop. In 2015 alone, 300 generic drugs — off-patent medications, which are typically cheap to make — saw price increases of more than 100 percent, according to a 2016 Government Accountability Office report. [...]
On average, Medicaid programs in 2017 paid $35,556.48 per Daraprim prescription, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of federal data covering that year’s first three quarters.
Somebody is paying that money to the big pharmaceutical companies … us.