Martin Shkreli
Martin Shkreli really thought he could talk his way out of this one. The former hedge funder and current CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals seemed to think that if he just explained that he'd raised the price on a drug by 4,000 percent or 5,500 percent, depending who you asked, because he needed to profit, see, and it was only just and right that he should profit as handsomely as he wanted to, people would stop pointing out that he was price gouging out of sheer greed and go quietly away. That's not how it worked out, and now Shkreli is saying he'll lower the price of Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug used to treat AIDS patients and others with compromised immune systems, from the $750 a pill he'd hiked it to.
"We've agreed to lower the price of Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit," Shkreli told ABC.
But how much are they lowering the price? Shkreli and Turing aren't saying just yet, which means that eventually we're going to find out what Martin Shkreli thinks "more affordable" and "very small profit" mean. When that announcement comes, remember that the drug's $13.50 price prior to Turing acquiring the rights to it was already a substantial price hike over where it had been not all that long ago.
What made Shkreli fold? He didn't seem to mind the public hate at first, but presumably everyone has a breaking point on being the subject of viral loathing. And stuff like this may have influenced his thinking, too:
[Rep. Elijah] Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, has requested a hearing next week to question Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager known as the “Pharma bro.”
Having a member of Congress as noteworthy as Elijah Cummings (D-MD) coming for you has to be an unsettling feeling if you're a price-gouging scumbag.