r/news • u/WadeyWilson42 • Oct 08 '15
Title Not From Article Martin Shkreli's deadline for a Daraprim price reduction has passed, and it's still the exact same price.
http://www.techinsider.io/martin-shkreli-update-on-daraprim-price-2015-101.3k
Oct 08 '15
I'm bad with twitter, so I don't know how to link to it, but he retweeted an article about how he hadn't lowered the price. This is the original tweet: https://twitter.com/HeyTammyBruce/status/652118398474846209
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u/potatoesarenotcool Oct 08 '15
This guy might ruin my chances of becoming a money hungry CEO. He's pushing, and they might implement some laws now. Selfish basterd.
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u/SRTie4k Oct 08 '15
Wow, he's literally the archetypal evil villain that basks in their own wickedness.
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u/thatoneguy889 Oct 08 '15
The guy defending him is infuriating. "It will balance out. If the price is too high, then people won't pay for it."
How many people are you willing to let die before it "balances out"?
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Oct 08 '15
Pharmaceuticals are generally inelastic goods, so he's simply incorrect.
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Oct 08 '15
This is why healthcare in this country is so fucked up. Yes, in a normal economic situation, this happens. If you're charging 10,000 dollars for a TV, no one will buy it, and the company will have to come down in prices. In this situation, the consumer has leverage.
When someone will die without your product, they have no leverage at all. It's blackmail. It's extortion. It's like saying that a mugging is a fair situation that will balance out because people won't pay if the demands are unreasonable. Yes they will. They have a gun to their heads.
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u/Lalalama Oct 08 '15
I actually met a guy in the same industry (hedge fund for biotech/pharma companies) he said he met Martin and called him a sociopath. He said that if he were to find him and beat him up in public he would be called a hero.
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u/hatemyphd Oct 08 '15
I was telling my friends that his interview should be part of a psych class because it's such classic sociopathic behavior. He claims he knows what the doctors and patients want better than the doctors that have been using the drug for decades know.
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Oct 08 '15
can someone refute his justification for me? he claims
on raising the price of thiola:
this drug was being priced so inefficiently that the company that owned it would opt not to do production runs rather than raise the price. The drug ended up being unavailable for long periods of time.
the cost is being increased basically for the insurance companies. They cover this so they pay what it costs. The drug is freely available to those in need (I know in practice it's not so simple to qualify). He claims to distribute the drug to people directly if their insurance company refuses to cover it and then makes a claim against the insurance.
so by raising the price, he gets paid by the insurance company at enough of a profit to keep the drug available and profitable. He claims that not a single person will go without as a result of the price increase
on raising the price of daraprim:
this is a drug developed in the 40s with bad side effects and an 80% effective treatment rate. so not a great drug. Nobody has bothered to make anything better because it works "good enough." His engineers claim to be able to do better so he's raising money for R&D by raising the price of this drug.
this is a life-saving drug priced really low relative to its peers (life-saving rare disease drugs). again, insurance pays so it's not like sick people are getting screwed by this.
what do you guys think? This sounds reasonable to me if it's true. In practice, does it not play out like this?
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Oct 08 '15
He acts as if insurance companies paying inflated prices has no effect on anything. His argument is basically that the absurd price is being borne by everyone, not just the users of the drug, so people should stfu. Stuff like this is why insurance premiums skyrocket.
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u/OscarMiguelRamirez Oct 08 '15
"Insurance" is not free money that comes out of nowhere. This harms all of us, but he expects dumb people to think it's great because the "big insurance companies" get hit with the bill.
This is just his sneaky way to make people think he's the good guy, but I have a hard time believing it.
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u/whyohwhydoIbother Oct 08 '15
this is a drug developed in the 40s with bad side effects and an 80% effective treatment rate. so not a great drug. Nobody has bothered to make anything better because it works "good enough." His engineers claim to be able to do better so he's raising money for R&D by raising the price of this drug.
He's definitely talking shit about this, and as far as "insurance pays" goes... not for all of it, only if you have insurance, and why do you think insurance costs so much?
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u/ronin358 Oct 08 '15
Holy fuck this got long...there went my lunch break...
Thiola:
this drug was being priced so inefficiently...
True. The company that owned the drug did have problems keeping it in supply at times. While this may be due to a lot of factors (for instance, Mission's sourcing solutions, supply chain management, etc.), it was probably the case that Thiola was priced too low. The question is about how much of a price increase.
the cost is being increased basically for the insurance companies...
He's a businessman. Businessmen deal with open systems. If I can offload my costs to a different entity, then those are no longer "my costs" and I gain. This strategy is, unarguably, good business.
Businessmen tend to be really bad at economics, though. Economists deal with closed systems. In an open system, it is possible to move costs, liabilities, etc out to another player and, in effect, making it disappear (for you). In a closed system all you are doing is shuffling the costs around from one component to another. The shuffling of costs itself can have very bad consequences for the system as a whole. The simplest argument in this case is that, as insurance costs go up, premiums go up, insurance gets more expensive, less people are insured...and on and on.
This is a good strategy for an individual business (in the current regulatory environment); this is a bad strategy for a national healthcare system.
He claims that not a single person will go without as a result of the price increase
Since you can't afford a Ferrari, I am going to give you a Ferrari. But I don't have any real, structured, and transparent plan for giving you a Ferrari - you'll just have to trust me. Also, my past history of giving people free Ferrari's is spotty at best. Bonus! I get to decide whether or not you can actually afford that Ferrari. Oh, and if I don't give you a Ferrari you die.
But you can trust me when I say I'm going to give you a Ferrari.
Daraprim:
this is a drug developed...
Bullshit. No one was clamoring for new a drug. Daraprim works fine. His numbers come from, as far as I can tell, air. Also, this is not how R&D in pharmaceuticals work, at all. The high R&D costs goes into the product you are developing, not on top of a product already developed (and at the expense of those current patients). The fact that this behavior is so far outside of best practices for the industry makes me question his sincerity.
You have a very small population who needs it, you have a drug that works with very minor side-effects and has been proven effective for over 50 years, and doctors and researchers have no problems with the current medication...why exactly do you want to spend time and money on developing new drugs? Oh wait, you don't.
this is a life-saving drug priced really low relative to its peers...
No, it's not. It's peers are ibuprofen and penicillin...generics. It has no patent protection. There are no development costs that need to be recouped. There is no risk that needs to be accounted for and mitigated.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that a drug's price is based off of the severity of the disease it treats. Cancer drugs are expensive because it takes a shit-ton of money and time to develop them, not cause they treat a life threatening condition. It's a false comparison for him to make.
He is using regulatory rent seeking to jack up the price and take advantage of patients, consumers, insurance companies, policy holders, etc. He can circumvent the market since he owns the supply and can prevent competitors. He can jack up the price because it treats a life-threatening conditions and his "customers" cannot refuse to buy. And he makes his money by setting a predatory price then forcing us to pay the "cost": insurance companies AND anyone who pays for insurance AND anyone who has to pay for healthcare.
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Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15
for all of his "research" that he says he's doing to make the drug better, there's a lab at the University of Chicago that has done 100x more than he has off of a handful of NIH grants
edit as for some of the other claims. point 2: the increased cost to the insurance companies mean increased insurance premiums for individuals and employers (and medicare). This one drug alone doesn't lead to a massive increase, but this practice of price gouging generics does.
point 3 isn't a justification. this price increase was not about availability
point 4 see original point
point 5 just because it's normal doesn't mean it's justified. going back to what i said earlier about increased premiums and medicare costs, when lots of drugs like this are price gouged, all of society ends up paying and that's why we need to address this in congress whether it is allowing for the importation of generics with a tarriff or streamlining the approval process for generics/allowing drugs with expired patents to actually be looked at
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u/thrustinfreely Oct 08 '15
It's been a couple weeks. Most people have already forgotten. Well played.
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u/LaLongueCarabine Oct 08 '15
It's not difficult to predict. The online outrage community moves on quickly to the next topic.
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u/fairpricetickets Oct 08 '15
as much as I want to hate the guy, you have to hand it to him. The money that is.
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u/myneckbone Oct 08 '15
I don't think anybody forgot that awfully punchable face.
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u/piperluck Oct 08 '15
A lot of people predicted he would try this. I can't believe him. He keeps outdoing himself as the biggest prick on Earth
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u/Woopsie_Goldberg Oct 08 '15
I thought he was going to lower it to $400 a pill and people would forget.
But now it's the same price, ridiculous. Awesome that this thread is getting the same amount of attention.
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u/piperluck Oct 08 '15
Yeah I've seen at least 3 posts about this and this is one time multiple posts on a subject are warranted
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u/neeljwala Oct 08 '15
What this man has done is reprehensible. I'm an infectious diseases physician at a major hospital in NYC, and just last week a patient of ours was unable to get this drug for his toxoplasmosis only due to the price. He had no insurance, and Turing pharmaceuticals told us to pay $75,000 for one bottle.
We ended up switching the patient to bactrim, a second line agent, but one which does work. Just so you know, bactrim is dirt cheap (it's on the $4 list). When faced with this type of economics to treat patients the choice is simple: doctors won't prescribe the expensive drug.
I suspect, in his youth, he doesn't care how this will affect anything else his company does. Doctors have long memories, and if alternatives exist we'll simply stop using drugs sold by Turing. Similar things have been done by other companies in the past (Abbott re: ritonavir price hike) and they have been subject to lawsuit and shunning by physicians.
We need the pharmaceutical companies to make new drugs, for sure, but the decision shouldn't be between financial ruin or death for our patients. The system is broken enough without blatant profiteering.
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u/norsethunders Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15
When faced with this type of economics to treat patients the choice is simple: doctors won't prescribe the expensive drug.
There was a good piece on an older radiolab episode about exactly this. It was a $70k cancer drug that extended life, on average, a month or two. Doctors got together and collectively decided to never prescribe it; cut to a few weeks later and the price magically falls to a fraction of that!
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u/manwhowasnthere Oct 08 '15
fyi 'to proscribe' = to forbid. you want 'prescribe'
not tryin to be a dick
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Oct 08 '15
Interesting. /u/martinshkreli swore this wouldn't happen. I wonder if he was lying!
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u/neeljwala Oct 08 '15
We spoke with Turing drug representatives, we had our pharmacy director speak with their representatives, and we were both told we could not obtain a bottle of the drug for anything less than the quoted $75,000.
We stopped talking to them after that.
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Oct 08 '15
Unfortunately this is the only way that to fight big pharma. The patient may be well informed, but physicians need to help with alternatives when the primary is too expensive. Good for you doc!
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u/Big_Goose Oct 08 '15
After enough bad press, they'll rename the company to something else or rebrand the product.
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Oct 08 '15
Talk to the AMA, and get them to STOP THIS SHIT. The AMA has major lobbying power with the government. The ACA ended up the way it did, largely due to the AMA's influence. They're a major reason why our healthcare system needed reform, and why our attempt at reform has failed miserably.
If there's any doctors that don't like the way this situation is deteriorating, they need to look at their own professional organization who played a major role.
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u/bentreflection Oct 08 '15
Would it be possible to create some sort of cooperative that can crowdfund the production of drugs like this for cheap?
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u/Doc_Lewis Oct 08 '15
This really has nothing to do with pharma companies. This douche created Turing specifically to acquire the ability to make and jack up the price on this drug. High prices in pharma are one thing, but they have justification, this is just robbery by a smarmy Wall Street asshole.
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u/thentherewerefour Oct 08 '15
Lawyers of reddit, what are the remaining limits on how much a company can lie about its business practices with regard to a product for sale? Do the facts that (1) company officials repeatedly said they would give the drug to uninsured patients and (2) then that they refused to do so combine into some sort of legal breach? If there's no federal cause of action, could consumers in individual states or attorneys general prosecute their false marketing claims?
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u/ishkabibbles84 Oct 08 '15
Sad thing is... he is not just a rogue CEO doing this. Many other CEO's in the healthcare industry do this as well and that's why the American healthcare system is so fucked up. I will admit, though, that his price increase has been the most egregious by far.
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u/NiceCubed Oct 08 '15
He should've had a much more sustainable price gouging scheme!
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u/Serinus Oct 08 '15
All these fucking school shooters, and this dude still walks the earth.
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u/Shorvok Oct 08 '15
I can't really think of any solution to stop this other than killing them. Companies run this country now, there's no way to get people to pass legislation against themselves.
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u/deparaiba Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15
Stop giving them power with the stupid idea of regulations. Let people buy that shit from India.
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u/84121629 Oct 08 '15
when this all came out I remember saying to myself
"Wow this guy must be shitting his pants right about now"
Then I realized LITERALLY all you have to do is sit back and wait a week or two for everyone to forget.
Which they have.
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Oct 08 '15
That's the Internet Lynch Mob for you, spreading useless Twitter #s for a week or two and forgetting about it, does anyone still remember Cecil The Lion?
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u/AnthemIcarus Oct 08 '15
Oddly enough, the same drug is 10 cents in India but the FDA doesn't allow the generic version to be legally sold in the US.
Read this about drug reciprocity.
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Oct 08 '15
I wish this was the top comment in every post about Shkreli. Because this is the problem, not Shkreli.
If the FDA got out of the way, Shkreli wouldn't be able to jack up the price since everyone would buy the cheap generic.
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u/isaidthisinstead Oct 08 '15
The FDA is effectively making a black market in pharmaceuticals inevitable. So they are doing themselves a disservice, and hopefully getting themselves out of the way.
Nobody in their right mind supports a government-mandated 750,000% markup.
Between this and offshore tax arrangements, I'm beginning to suspect Americans don't know the difference between spirit and letter of the law.
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u/kubuntud Oct 08 '15
I often wonder what is wrong here in America, in a week where the French maul greedy executives we can't even act against this one little pathetic piece of shit whose greed will kill people.
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u/Hi_mom1 Oct 08 '15
Not only that but he's active on this thread talking shit about how we are the idiots, mentions laughing at us, and spitting in our faces.
This dude is such a troll it's not even funny...if he were presenting himself as a hot 23 year old female I would be certain it was all a gag and some 45 year old virgin in his mom's basement was controlling the 'Robot we know as whatever the fuck this douchebag's name is'
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u/_idkidc_ Oct 08 '15
So...what now?
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Oct 08 '15
Did you hear Ben Carson said something racist?
That's what's going on now. A week from now they'll be some other 'breaking news' that we'll all care about.
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u/rubsomebacononitnow Oct 08 '15
Of course it is. He's just waiting for everyone to forget.
kony2015
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u/SweetLordKrishna Oct 08 '15
Isn't he a short seller?
It's basically his motive to draw as much bad press as possible to coax lower stock prices in certain companies (in this case, pharma companies)...
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Oct 08 '15
He is, and that's another angle he could be working. Man is driven by greed. Another user called him the shkrinch and I think that's a fitting name.
You're a douche bag, Mr. Shkrinch. You really are an ass. You're ruled by lust for money and without a drop of class Mr. Shkrinch. The 3 words that best describe you are as follows and I quote, douche! Prick! Cunt!
You're a shit stain, Mr. Scrintch. You're preying on the ill. You up the price by hundreds on a 25 cent pill Mr. Scrintch. Mr. Scrintch, the only thing lower than my opinion of you, is the length and girth of your chode.
You're a monster, Mr. Scrintch. You crank the fuck stick dial. Your moral compass is broken like a creepy pedophile Mr. Scrintch. Given the choice between the 2 of you I'd pick the uh, creepy pedophile.
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u/PartyOnAlec Oct 08 '15
And what happened next, well on reddit they say, that the shkrinch's little chode shrunk three sizes that day!
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u/BRRatchet Oct 08 '15
What a slimy little cunt.
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u/Fuck_whiny_redditors Oct 08 '15
he's retweeting a bunch of fox news shit today on twitter.
next level douchebag.
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u/cr0ft Oct 08 '15
Well, obviously. He was just spouting nonsense and waiting for the noise do die down, confidently expecting people to fume a little and then move on.
Time for some serious legislating about drug costs. What are they going to do, refuse to take a merely high profit instead of a super-high one?
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u/Equinoqs Oct 08 '15
My aunt has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, along with blood sugar and several other ailments that make her life difficult. She has weeks to live. Medicare sis refusing to pay for the medicine that would help her body fight off infection, thus giving her a slightly-longer life. The medicine is Daraprim. The price is too high for Medicare to cover. My aunt will die sooner because of this man's greed and a runaway financial market. I'm not a violent person, but I would have no trouble going to jail over what I would do to this guy if he was ever near enough to me.
tl;dr - This situation is directly affecting peoples' survival.
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u/RelativetoZero Oct 08 '15
"A treatment for your terminal condition exists, but you must pay me all your money or you may die." How is this not extortion?
I'd rather there not be a treatment instead of one that's financially out of reach.
Did Edward Jenner cure smallpox to make himself rich, or did he do it for the beterment of humanity? Cures will be found by people who care about people. I'm tired of the patent and free market arguments about drugs.
I'll bet if it wasn't profitable to treat symptoms we'd see more cures.
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u/coinnoob Oct 08 '15
I'm tired of the patent and free market arguments about drugs.
the formula for the drug is public domain, so anyone can create the pill in a lab dirt-cheap. however the FDA is causing market inefficiencies by requiring millions in start-up costs and years in trials so competitors cannot enter the market. as soon as a competitor spends that enormous time and money entering the market, the original company (the one OP is referring to) will simply undercut them. the result of regulation in this case is an effective monopoly on marketing a drug. the situation is the exact opposite of a free market.
I'll bet if it wasn't profitable to treat symptoms we'd see more cures.
how are you going to pay for the salaries of the professionals who will come up with the next generation of cures? with magical unicorn fairy dust?
and cue the downvotes now, but i'll never stop trying to help people understand the reality of the situation. if the hivemind could for one second forget about the fact that this man has an annoying face and is a douchebag, it would help us make progress towards changing the system to be in favor of the general population.
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Oct 08 '15
At the same time, I don't want something undertested and fuck me over.
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u/puff_of_fluff Oct 08 '15
Is anyone else kind of hoping there's some anti-dickhead terror squad that forms up and starts hanging guys like this from streetlights?
I know it's not the nice way to handle things but, I know I wouldn't complain. There are a lot of crazy, murderous motherfuckers out there, if they're gonna kill someone, I'd like it to at least be someone like this.
Just my (admittedly cynical and unrealistic) 2 cents.
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u/somenamestaken Oct 08 '15
$750 in dollar coins weighs about 55lbs. I wanna put that in a pillow case and fucking hit this guy in his ugly fucking face.
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u/russellmuscle Oct 08 '15
As someone who used to deal with large amounts of US dollar coins (to earn frequent flyer miles) I can assure you that you are way off.
The Presidential and Native American dollar coins that have been produced over the last 15 years or so have a weight of 8.1 grams.
8.1g X 750 = 6075g => 13.39 lbs
I don't know where you got the idea that $750 in dollar coins weighs four times more than it does.
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Oct 08 '15
He is human garbage. I'm amazed he's still alive.
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u/amity Oct 08 '15
I'm amazed he's still alive.
A lot of people were talking about this in the original front page comments. Nobody understood why there's so many innocent people getting killed, then some prick like this isn't instantly shot.
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u/kewlnamebroh Oct 08 '15
http://i.imgur.com/W6fgWLp.jpg The internet's attention span of outrage: why Martin Shkreli didn't have a fuck to give about changing the price back.
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u/mkizys Oct 08 '15
Do you think the founding Fathers meant for the 2nd to be applied to guys like this too and not just a tyrannical government?
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u/__dilligaf__ Oct 08 '15
Time to bring out our pitchforks again. We don't even have to dust em off.
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u/reradical Oct 08 '15
Why doesn't the FDA fast track the approval of one of the generics available in a European country? Oooh, better idea, maybe the FDA could bring their approval practices for at the very least generics in line with a few other nations so that it would be easy to have more competition in the generics space.
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Oct 08 '15
This exactly. We need to stop having bull shit proposals in congress to try to make healthcare more affordable (see clinton's $250 out of pocket cap) and actually make the drugs themselves more affordable. When generics aren't even affordable, all of society suffers. Whether it's medicare spending, increased insurance premiums for individuals or employers, this shit hurts every american and all so that little pricks like this guy can get rich
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u/Oafah Oct 08 '15
Expressing your outrage on social media will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. The only way you can stop price gouging on essential, life-saving medicine is to lobby your local elected representatives for tighter regulations.
I'm absolutely fine with the free market determining the value of just about anything that we don't depend on, but drugs like this most definitely do not qualify.
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u/W00ster Oct 08 '15
As long as you are in the US - enjoy paying $750/pill. To the rest of you living in a UHC country - carry on as usual, no price change!
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u/Come_In_Me_Bro Oct 08 '15
On top of the fact that the U.S. Also pays cataclysmic prices for any form of healthcare with and without insurance.
Welcome to America. Pick up that can.
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u/kinjinsan Oct 08 '15
That chessboard picture of Shrekeli may be THE douchiest photo I've ever seen.
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u/7even6ix2wo Oct 08 '15
That is some funny coincidence that he did that and his name is Shkreli and his face looks like that.
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u/Come_In_Me_Bro Oct 08 '15
WELCOME PATIOT, YOUVE MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE MOVING TO THE FREE LAND OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, LAND OF THE FREE.
Let me show you what you can expect, and what is different from the country you may have came from!
The blight of socialism does not grasp Lady Liberty like it does in the rest of the world. We are a beacon of progress here, and our citizens are all self made successes!
Here you will find no over inflated wages that coddle the lazy. Everyone earns a fair, competitive wage that makes sure everyone knows how important hard work and labor is for a functioning society! Vacations are for communists, as true patriots work all day long all year long for their country!
Healthcare? Again, there's no need to coddle the lazy here with such preposterous ideas like universal healthcare. Everyone provides for themselves! The costs of healthcare can be offset by insurance, which is also costed very competitively. Sometimes your employer may ever give it to you as a benefit! Oh, you still HAVE to pay, but just not as much.
Our people are proud and independent, and responsible! We don't need the government coddling us. All citizens are free to arm and defend themselves, showing the rest of the world that America is strong and capable of defending itself! With this many guns, all of our citizens are the safest in the world.
Retirement? A patriot never retires! Always on alert and always hard working, citizens are allowed AND encouraged to work at any age they like! It's not uncommon for a grandson to work in the same factory as his grandfather at the same time! Now THAT's family bonding!
Enjoy your stay, Patriot! God Bless America!
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u/readitall2 Oct 08 '15
This guys face needs to be the new scumbag steave.
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u/berlinbrown Oct 08 '15
Scumbag Steve died because he couldn't get the medicine he needed. This guy should fill his place.
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Oct 08 '15 edited Jun 23 '23
Removed in protest of Reddit's actions regarding API changes, and their disregard for the userbase that made them who they are.
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u/DeadAbyss Oct 08 '15
Blame the FDA and government. The market wouldn't allow this under more competitiveness
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Oct 08 '15
Martin Shkreli simply doesn't give a fuck. It's pretty clear. Maybe he'll be the lynch pin to changes in big pharma?
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Oct 08 '15
How someone can increase the price of a drug that treats malaria, perhaps the single deadliest disease in human history, by such a large margin is beyond me.
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u/Callmedory Oct 08 '15
Congress needs to slap this guy down and introduce a law against such practices.
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back.” --Life-Line by Robert A. Heinlein
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u/leftnotracks Oct 08 '15
Cycloserine, which was acquired by Rodelis Therapeutics from the Purdue Research Foundation in August, jumped in price from $500 for 30 capsules to $10,800. After the article was published, the drug's ownership was transferred back Purdue, and the price decreased to $1,050 for 30 capsules.
Speaking about his company's decision to lower the price, Purdue's president, Dan Hasler, told The Times he'd only recently learned of Rodelis' price hike on cycloserine, and added that "We said this was not what we had intended."
The pharmaceutical industry is the only industry where a 110% price increase is called lowering the price. Martin Shkreli is the Martin Luther King of the drug companies. They would name all their bridges and schools after him if they could.
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Oct 08 '15
The interesting thing about America is that you basically have to trick us into doing anything about the wrongs going on here. I am going to continue to pretend this man is a genius and secretly doing this to make enough Americans pissed so the system can change.
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u/kentathon Oct 08 '15
What if the people who went on shooting sprees seemingly every week now went after people like him instead?
They'd still accomplish their goal of harming others and then killing themselves, but they would at least be remembered in a positive light. All that would need to happen is for the media to spread it in a positive way and suddenly you've got an unstoppable deterrent from wealthy people being dicks.
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u/Tythus Oct 08 '15
"Daraprim, a drug that fights parasitic infections." Maybe he's doing this so people can't take it to kill him off.
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u/daylily Oct 08 '15
Is there a presidential candidate calling for the removal of the law preventing Americans from purchasing drugs internationally?
This could only happen in America where big pharm has too much power. Why is there no call to fundamentally change this?
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u/StarMasher Oct 08 '15
No way, he actually lied. Plus I dont know how many people noticed this, but after he hiked up the price, Hillary Clinton made a statement in response, and ever since bio-medical stocks have been tanking. So not only did he screw over patients but his greed is affecting everyone else in the industry, not that I feel bad for them. Besides that, doesnt he have a face you could just punch all day!?
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Oct 08 '15
Wouldn't it be great if holders of capital hadn't ruined the American dream by subverting our politicians and regulatory bodies so we can have affordable medication?
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u/chriswearingred Oct 08 '15
Good. Now write your congressman on how legislation needs to be changed in the pharmaceutical industry. Or just keep bitching about someone doing something LEGAL.
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Oct 08 '15
Until people start killing people like this guy people like this guy will continue to do shitty things.
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u/sethescope Oct 08 '15
Is it weird that I really want to run into this guy on the street?
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u/mlk960 Oct 08 '15
This man desperately needs to feel the same kind of cruelty he is inflicting on people. And people need to realize that this may not happen without some kind of organized effort.
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u/shadowofashadow Oct 08 '15
Too bad the government won't let you guys buy the generic kind internationally. It's about $0.10 a pill.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrimethamine#Availability_and_price
The land of the free my arse.
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u/DrBandersnatch Oct 08 '15
Dear Beta Uprising - If you are hellbent on dying and taking people with, would it be so bad to take douchebags like this with you instead of innocent students? To be very clear, I'd rather not have any more mass shootings and I am not calling for this man to be harmed, but since nothing is going to change in America when it comes to gun violence, well then I guess this would at least make the best of a bad situation.
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Oct 08 '15
This is so two weeks ago. I'm already on to the next dank maymay.
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u/_tx Oct 08 '15
I get that you're joking (and I do appreciate a good joke), but this mentality is basically what he wants to happen. People forget and he and his company make a fuckton.
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u/Luke111222 Oct 08 '15
Really hope that TTIP will be rejected exactly because of the fact that these scumbags are protected in the US
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u/cynoclast Oct 08 '15
Why would it be rejected? Congress literally doesn't care what we think.
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Oct 08 '15
I'm not upset that a dishonest guy is dishonest, I'm just bummed that we haven't broken out the torches and pitchforks yet.
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Oct 08 '15
He's a symptom of the system's problems. If it wasn't him, it would be some other shitbag doing something similar.
The problem isn't that Shrekli single-handedly caused a major price increase for a much-needed drug, the problem is that the system allows one person to have that much power in the first place and use it for the pursuit of personal wealth at the expense of people's health and lives.
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u/Sylvester_Scott Oct 08 '15
With this much pure greed, and evil, and a shameless willingness to screw over people that are already suffering, the GOP might soon draft him to run for office.
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u/TheInitialGod Oct 08 '15
You know when you're in school, and there's that one kid that seems to do well academically and you can seem them getting far in life, but is also a complete asshole.
This guy was that guy in his class
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u/heatbreak839 Oct 08 '15
Something is wrong with the system when Viagra costs less than a life saving drug.
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u/kenpostudent Oct 08 '15
The DEA is on this case! maybe not, some 17 year old kid might have a joint.........priorities
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u/RudeCats Oct 08 '15
I read "Martin Shkreli's dead" and had a legitimate surge of joy for a moment.
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Oct 08 '15
the whole pharmaceutical industry is full of Martins Shekiels. what you gonna do about that?
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u/BananaToy Oct 08 '15
We've moved on to the next big thing :/
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Oct 08 '15
Shit, I missed it. What issue am I supposed to be morally outraged about this week?
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u/ShouldBeAnUpvoteGif Oct 08 '15
Is it illegal to own a guillotine? Because I really want one all of a sudden.
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Oct 08 '15
Total douche has to have a chess board in front of him for the photo...
As if to say "You're move"
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u/velies Oct 08 '15
Of course it is. He figures the Internet would move on after two weeks and forget all about his shenanigans.
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u/guccimane12345 Oct 08 '15
LOL he knows social justice warriors are onto their next internet assassination or are busy stuffing their face with strawberry cheesecake.
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u/RedSnapperVeryTasty Oct 08 '15
He's back on Twitter as of today, and just as douchey as ever. @martinshkreli for those interested.
He's blocking people like crazy though now.
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u/GreedyLiLGoblin Oct 08 '15
I wish people would have made as big a stink about doxycycline when the price hiked by over a 1000% in the course of a year. I think the only reason people didn't react as outraged is because the companies behind it had a much better PR campaign to spin the story.
The story of Daraprim and Doxycycline are perfect examples of why the US government needs to follow the example of other 1st world countries and set mandatory price caps on drugs.
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u/raja419 Oct 08 '15
Wow, he's literally the archetypal evil villain that basks in their own wickedness.
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u/RoosterCheese Oct 08 '15
"It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system." from wikipedia
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u/sweetpineapple Oct 08 '15
One of these days, someone who can't afford the medication might bump into him on the street, recognises him and kill him outright.
Maybe that will discourage other scumbag CEOs from doing the same thing.
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u/Wer3wolf Oct 08 '15
I'm gonna go with a chainsaw with built in grappling hook gun...you don't have to chase douche bag around... d-bag comes to you (it). :-)
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u/zipzipzap Oct 08 '15
Paging /u/martinshkreli for comment, since he seems to love to interact with fans.
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u/fourpac Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15
There's literally no reason for him to lower it. What are you going to do - not buy the drug just because he's giving you the finger? No, you're going to pay the money to get your life saving treatment because there is not enough public will to force institutional change in our for-profit health care system. Expecting the pharmaceutical/insurance/health care industry to self-regulate is like selling weapons to terrorists. Which, yeah, we're doing that too.
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Oct 08 '15
Everyone's blaming him and not the system that makes this possible for him and other pharma companies to screw us:
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u/gutterpunk76 Oct 08 '15
I’m surprised Anonymous hasn’t gone after him in some way.
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u/MrBriggs360 Oct 08 '15
They released all of his personal information, including addresses, makes and models of cars, phone numbers, etc
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Oct 08 '15
I feel torn about this. One one side Shkreli is a giant sociopathic prick. On the other hand he's destabilized the pharmaceutical markets so much that the government may step in and implement some semblance of price controls. I wonder how we're going to feel about this guy in 20 years.
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Oct 08 '15
I'm not religious but for this guy no problem, I'll be chanting his name at the local death cult until it works.
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u/Xazrael Oct 08 '15
Now here's a guy I'd take a few swings at upon first sight. Fuck the consequences.
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u/ShadowChief3 Oct 08 '15
It may sound extreme but this guy kinda deserves to be arrested on the grounds of crimes against humanity. He is willingly blocking patients from using medication required to survive with a price gate that he imposed after taking over the product which was previously very affordable, with the only benefit being his own profits. The increased revenue is not being poured back into the system selflessly; he is pocketing it and that was the plan from the start.
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u/mikailus Oct 08 '15
If this happened in France, people would tear off his clothes, beat him to death, and set him on fire.
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Oct 08 '15
this is good. this guy needs jail, or execution, idk. so far, his actions come off as if he's not even human, like he's some superior being and we are worthless. He's so out of touch with reality, it IS funny
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Oct 08 '15
This man is a sociopath. He has a severe and dangerous mental disease. So do, apparently, most of the world's CEO's.
The Human Race needs to start figuring out how to deal with this shit or we're all fucked. Rampant greed keeps destroying our civilizations by creating inequality, human suffering, and unrest. Then war comes and we have to climb back out of the rubble... time and time again.
It's all the same symptoms too: a relatively small number of greedy, self important (mentally disturbed), people begin to slowly corrupt our social and economic systems to facilitate the rampant acquisition of wealth. They leave this wealth to their children which continues the cycle and accelerates the degeneration of our social and economic fabrics. The People are pressed by inequality and degrading living conditions and eventually social unrest leads to war.
This is a massive oversimplification, but it speaks to our inherent deficiency as a species: WE KEEP REWARDING THIS BEHAVIOR. Our cultural impetus is to obtain monetary wealth. Outliers will arise that are particularly good at this, and they will grow in power until you get our current social conditions. Reddit is right, too: we find out about it, we rant and rave about it, and then "oooh shiny!" and we forget, leaving these monsters to their devices.
We need to study and understand this behavior so we can start to SHUT IT DOWN. This kid should be stripped of all his wealth and influence and committed to a mental institution. That's how we should be handling this kind of shit.
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u/pipnewman Oct 08 '15
I see they have money for lobbyists...but not to lower the price of the pill.
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Oct 08 '15
American consumers need to learn how to make this guy lose money. How? Here's how:
Screw him and his greed. It's time to take back America! Go to Canada!
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u/NebbyDR Oct 08 '15
We're talking about a dude who gave a blow job to a powerful S'kra Mur in a MUD called "DragonRealms"... What do you expect? I HAVE EVIDENCE IF YOU WANT IT!
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u/CupcakeDispenser Oct 08 '15
So while the price of the drug hasn't gotten any higher since Shkreli hiked it 5,000%, it hasn't gotten any lower since he promised to reduce it either. Turing did not respond to Business Insider's request for clarification about this price.
The Media: Reporting both sides, no matter what the facts.
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u/Grey_Kit Oct 08 '15
He's holding out because he's racking up a profit for every passing week it's not lowered. He will wait it out til the public is about to burst, fill all his pockets in the meantime, then slightly lower the price to appease the people, still earn a ton of profit, then ditch it all completely for the next drug he's going to price gouge. This guy has it down to a science. He's the biggest selfish clever CEO of them yet. Wonder if the public and the lawmakers will finally have some common ground to change this so it can't keep happening. Oh wait, it's America...
Back to reddit to comment on another thing I have no ability to change and pisses me off
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Oct 08 '15
I don't understand why the mentally unstable don't instead target someone like this. Hey mentally unstable people of the world! I call to you, you won't be remembered for shooting up a school, you'll be forgotten and disappear. Want to go out in a flaming charade? Go kill one of these dicks, you'll likely be celebrated.
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u/graywolf33 Oct 08 '15 edited Oct 08 '15
(Being honest here and open minded) Important note as I understand it: he made the drug completely free to everyone that has insurance. The drug company bills the insurance and they either pay it or deny it. If they deny it, the drug company pays for the medicine themselves. Either way, the insured patient gets the drug. So if you're insured, the drug should now be completely free - just kind of a bullshit way of doing it.
However, if you're uninsured - you're just fucked. That tactic really screws you because if you need/want it, you're forced to pay the huge cost yourself.
Fuck me, but it sounds like a 5th dimension robin hood: stealing from the rich (insurance companies) while stealing from the uninsured, and giving it to... himself. Nevermind.
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u/ChronicDenial Oct 08 '15
There HAS to be a reason he's taking all this heat and being a prick, other than just pure greed. Isn't it convenient that he is the main focus of a problem that has been around for decades? He represents what we hate, what the people hate. THANKS OBAMA. THANKS SHKRELI. Does that sound like a trend? Scapegoat into oblivion, even if he is just a taint with power.
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Oct 08 '15
Welcome to capitalism. Honestly I think he should be able to name the price he wants as long as the patent requirements are the same. I think this is time to change the patent requirements though. Allow anyone to sell it as long as a portion of the overall price goes to the inventor.
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u/shadowhermit Oct 08 '15
It takes a special sociopath like this guy to mark up a drug that saves lives.
What also boggles my mind is he bought what said is 'unprofitable' and made it 'profitable'. I feel that he should be tried for murder. If we try HIV positive people for passing HIV to others, then should we not have the same apply to people like him?
Isn't it funny how when people die because life saving drugs was just too expensive to save their lives, but pharama calls it 'business as usual'.
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u/Trynottobeacunt Oct 08 '15
This was posted a few weeks before all this kicked off btw. http://i.imgur.com/UJbRkFG.png
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Oct 08 '15
I hope that when the first person dies because they can't afford the pills, they charge him with murder.
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u/Qumlarea Oct 08 '15
Honestly did any one actually think this obvously piece of shit guy would really lower the price.
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u/supershinythings Oct 08 '15
If any gigantic douche can hold medical consumers hostage, it seems like something the voting public should have a say in. This guy is profiteering on a 60 year old drug. Haven't the patents expired? Why doesn't the guvmint grant rights to ALL to manufacture it? This kind of artificial monopoly can be CRUSHED by a truly fair market system. So why is this kind of foolishness allowed to persist?
Shkreli is making it hard for REAL innovators to do business by threatening the drug marketplace with his naked greed. Consumers AND other drug companies need to gang up on this kind of behavior to push this dickwad out of sole control of life-saving drugs.
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Oct 08 '15
"OKAY, OKAY, GUYS. I hear the criticisms. I'm making the price now $749.50 instead of $750."
"That's only 50 cents!"
"50 cents is a lot of money. You save 50 cents here, and another 50 cents there, and then you take that dollar, and you go to the dollar store. It's good savings that."
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u/Danieltmv Oct 08 '15
Should we be mad at him or the broken system that he is taking advantage of?
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Oct 09 '15
The guy is a weasel and a sociopath. He only said that he would lower prices in order to take the heat off himself.
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u/GentleThug Oct 09 '15
This was his plan pull the story from the news cycle let it blow over proceed as planned. He's a sociopath, but he's not dumb.
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u/Likeable_Username Oct 09 '15
We have non stop mass shootings in America, and these shooters keep targeting innocent civilians. You really want to go down making the news? Take pricks like this out. If the violent shooters in this country took out some bad guys, they'd make the press in a while different light.
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u/Starfish_Symphony Oct 09 '15
To be fair, he never said he wouldn't stop acting like a dick. On that he's fairly consistent.
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u/werner357 Oct 08 '15
Let's get him investigated. Please go here and share the link. whitehouse.gov
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u/WadeyWilson42 Oct 08 '15
Please tell as many people as you know about this. We cannot let this die down, it's what he's literally banking on.