Remember this absolute dickhead?
CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, caused outrage by hiking up the price of an effective HIV drug by 5,000 per cent and now he’s at it again.
Shkreli has now increased the price of a medicine used to treat those who suffer with Chagas disease- a parasitic infection that can cause heart failure.
The move – which could put thousands of American sufferers lives at risk – could see benznidazole – the common drug used to treat Chigas in South America – increased from $50 for two months worth of treatments to anywhere between $60,000 to $100,000 per course of treatment the New York Times reported.
Shkreli’s company previously acquired the rights to the anti-HIV drug, Daraprim, which increased its price from $13.50 to $700.
To make this latest drug hike happen, the former hedge fund trader bought a majority share in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, which allowed him to apply for exclusive selling rights to the drug.
The news comes as it is announced that America has suffered an outbreak of the kissing bug- which is one of the ways Chagas disease is spread. It is estimated 300,000 in the United States have Chagas disease.
Taking advantage of the predicted surge in demand? Almost certainly. Shkreli believes that 3,000 to 7,000 people will require treatments for this infection each year in the U.S.
Many health centres currently offer this anti-Chagas drug for free, but this proposed pricing would no longer make this treatment available to the majority of the U.S. and South America’s population.
How can Shkreli justify the rise? Well he can’t, obviously. It’s not like he’s strapped for cash and he makes it quite clear how minted he is on Twitter on a rather frequent basis.
Recent reports said Shkreli is the owner of the $2 million one-off album by the Wu-Tang Clan.
What an utter c*nt.
