Martin Shkreli: Hero, zero, or somewhere in between?

You're correct that the drug market barely resembles a free market. I should have just called it the "market," and it should not be relied upon to provide affordable drugs in its current state. Response to customer outrage is part of whatever freedom does exist in the market, however.

I just thought it was funny that Hillary/Bernie set up the villain, but the market came in and provided the alternative before they could have their hero moments. I can picture their campaign disappointed at the good news.

The Dude2 wrote:

The man is a hero. He did NOTHING wrong by raising the price of Daraprim. The regulatory environment (FDA) is responsible for high drug prices across the board. But Shkreli is seriously a genius. In the last six months he's gone head to head with Trump, Sanders, Congress, the Wu-Tang Clan, Charlamagne Tha God, and owned all of their assess.

God I hope you are tolling (probably).

But just in case you're not..

Yes, a "genius". He talks and act like a typical teenager, and whose successes have been all due to fraud, lies, and criminal activity. But oh, he "owned" some people (according to you) on twitter, so.....he awesome bro', and EPIC too! In fact, he is awesome, epic, bro' GENIUS.

Glad he charmed your dumb-a$$ too.

Limousine Liberals wrote:

He was a cherry-picked, media manufactured "villan" who was set up perfectly for Hillary to come save the day. Then multiple companies started producing the pill for $1 and there was no need for her "help." Free market wins again.

This. He was manufactured into someone for the Reddit-browsing Social Justice Warriors to hate.

Limousine Liberals wrote:

I just thought it was funny that Hillary/Bernie set up the villain, but the market came in and provided the alternative before they could have their hero moments. I can picture their campaign disappointed at the good news.

Well then, you are easily amused. And, pssst..... he's been getting slammed by the right wingers too, and other biottech and Big Pharma companies, and lots and lots of people he bilked out of $, and.....

but yeah, only Hitlarly and Uncie Bernie had it out for him, just for a photo op. Right.

As a public healthcare company CEO, I have an substantial insight into the business of biotech, the inner workings of pharmaceutical commercialization, reimbursement policy, etc. It is unfortunate that the topic is so complicated because it means more than 99% of people who form and more tragically, state their opinions on people like Shkreli, including in some cases well-intentioned journalists, really have no appreciation or understanding of the motivations and drivers of this sort of situation. Today's hearing was embarrassing for the politicians more than Martin, who lost nothing but certainly reaffirmed his reputation as a juvenile delinquent. The pols simply revealed how little they know about the business. Martin got piggish and the system smacked him for his behavior, but he did nothing illegal by raising the price to optimize his revenues. But his actions at Retrophin, if true, appear to be in clear violation of securities laws (I had lunch with their former CFO at a conference and it was pretty clear he was in deep doo-doo, but I'm not from the SEC). The regulatory fallout, whatever it may be, will almost certainly be poorly connected to the actions which precipitated the high profile issues.

If you Bernie-lovers want to regulate the industry and inhibit innovation ("free medicine for all!"), that's fine, the money-makers will go elsewhere, but understand you absolutely will inhibit long-term innovation as the risk capital flows elsewhere. It's neither right nor wrong, simply a decision to place today's patients ahead of tomorrows patients.

Martin Shkreli is a god.

TLW wrote:

1) The drug he raised the prices on is very rarely used drug.

2) The price raise of the drug is still on the low end of the 'High Tier' pay schedule for drugs.

3) If a person is uninsured they can submit a form to his company and get the drug free.

4) Many drugs that are more commonly used cost much more than the drug he raised prices on.

The media and 99.9% of people are really stupid and don't understand that Pharma companies raise prices on drugs like this ALL the time.

What are you his PR spokesman?

The guy is a ZERO. The guy bought an 62-year old drug for which the patent has long expired and jacked the price up by 5000% simply because he knew it would take a number of years for someone to product a generic version of it.

That's outrageous. All of the free market people shut up. Guess what. Part of the free market also belongs to consumers and politicans who get to react.

I mean with modern medicine depending so much on drugs, there has to be people looking at this type of stuff. If you have a pill and I'll die with out, the price might as well be a billion dollars. I'll pay it. The demand is totally inelastic.

He's been arrested on security fraud charges. How this idiot became the head of a pharma company at that age is beyond me. I guess because he's the only one who is big enough of an jerk to realize that the sick have to pay whatever you charge or they'll die.

If we actually had a free market in pharma, competition would rapidly force Turing to lower the price of Daraprim and probably make it obsolete. Unfortunately, no one can introduce a competing product because the FDA makes it so difficult for newcomers to enter the market. Because we're taking about rare diseases, no one is willing to invest the resources necessary to obtain FDA approval for new a new drug.

The only reason anyone makes drugs is for profit. If you don't understand that, you are the problem.

Shkreli got to where he is by being a genius.

Therapeutic rationale wrote:

If you Bernie-lovers want to regulate the industry and inhibit innovation ("free medicine for all!"), that's fine, the money-makers will go elsewhere, but understand you absolutely will inhibit long-term innovation as the risk capital flows elsewhere. It's neither right nor wrong, simply a decision to place today's patients ahead of tomorrows patients.

I agree with most of what you said, but your second paragraph gave me pause. I don't think that I've seen any posts on this thread expressing much sympathy for the views of Bernie Sanders or "free medicine for all," so the reference to "you Bernie-lovers" was a bit jarring. Overwhelmingly, I think, the views expressed on this thread have reflected a rather strong tilt against regulations that might impose ceilings on drug prices.

I think it's important to recognize, though, that the current legal and regulatory frameworks (both state and federal) do, to a large extent, already control prescription drug prices. But they do so largely by prohibiting or inhibiting product and price competition -- perhaps most obviously through the patent system, but also through the FDA approval process and the statutes and regulations that govern reimbursements by public entities. The net effect can be to prop up drug prices far beyond what they would be in some hypothetical "free market." Of course, the usual economic justification for the patent system is that it allows innovators to recapture development costs and profit from their socially beneficial work by, among other things, preventing "free riders" from entering into the supply side of a market for limited times, and that may well be a perfectly legitimate justification for suppressing competition (in fact, it's specifically recognized in the "copyright and patent clause" of the U.S. Constitution), but it also perturbs the market in all kinds of ways that depend upon the specific laws and regulations that are adopted and enforced. (There is, for example, nothing in the copyright and patent clause that requires the government to provide anyone with a drug monopoly for twenty years.) With respect to the drug industry, the debates among serious policymakers are not about whether there should be regulation, but rather about the nature and extent of the regulation.

I would rather not have federal regulatory policy determined by the machinations of Martin Shkreli, who seems a peculiarly obnoxious young fellow. But it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if he served as a catalyst for thoughtful adjustments to a flawed system.

Everything you just posted is wrong and misinformed. He raised the price on the drug so he could raise money to develop a new and better drug. Sad that so many of you rush to judgement and are so easily manipulated by the media and politicians. Aren't ivy leaguers supposed to be able to think better than this??

Thanks for all the replies. Good stuff!

I'm not his PR spokesman at all, just someone who doesn't read a headline and assume.

He became the head because he started the company.

Per the Washington post:

"Turing responded to the memo with an emailed statement that said the company has invested all of its net profit and 60 percent of its revenue in research and development."

He's trying to develop new drugs.

If you want to get angry don't get mad at one person, get mad at the system.

The Dude2 wrote:

The only reason anyone makes drugs is for profit. If you don't understand that, you are the problem.

Jonas Salk

breath of fresh air, keeping it real in a world full of frauds. though I do hate him for being rich though

Read an interesting theory the other day that the point of his pricing was to focus outrage on other pharma companies doing the same thing, which would make their stocks drop (which it did). Since he shorted those stocks, he'd make a ton of money on it.

iifii wrote:

Everything you just posted is wrong and misinformed. He raised the price on the drug so he could raise money to develop a new and better drug. Sad that so many of you rush to judgement and are so easily manipulated by the media and politicians. Aren't ivy leaguers supposed to be able to think better than this??

That is indeed what he said he'd do. Is that what he'd actually do, or is it part of the pattern of fraud on which he's built his entire career? Has his company actually developed anything or invested any money in research?

Ho Hum wrote:

iifii wrote:

Everything you just posted is wrong and misinformed. He raised the price on the drug so he could raise money to develop a new and better drug. Sad that so many of you rush to judgement and are so easily manipulated by the media and politicians. Aren't ivy leaguers supposed to be able to think better than this??

That is indeed what he said he'd do. Is that what he'd actually do, or is it part of the pattern of fraud on which he's built his entire career? Has his company actually developed anything or invested any money in research?

Turing has developed no new drugs, and its expenditures on research and development have been negligible. It recently allocated additional funds to research and development on the advice of a public relations consultant.

("The industry claims it must target prices so high to recoup the heavy costs of research and development. But the hearing showed that companies like Turing and Valeant don’t spend much on R&D at all. Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) points out that Valeant’s R&D equaled only 3 percent of sales between 2014 and 2015. Turing had a similarly low percentage, until a public relations consultant told them to raise it. To this day, Turing has not brought a single drug from the conceptual stage all the way to market; its profits come solely from drugs it purchases and makes available at a premium.")

racket wrote:

The Dude2 wrote:

The only reason anyone makes drugs is for profit. If you don't understand that, you are the problem.

Jonas Salk

+1000

You're being dishonest. Shkreli and Turing have only been at this for a matter of months. Why are you expecting them to have developed drugs in such a short time frame? It can take longer than that just to find researchers to hire.

I'm not being dishonest. I provided specific answers to specific questions, and I provided a respectable news source for support. You, on the other hand, appear to be making assertions about Shkreli's plans for Turing based on nothing more than Shkreli's own responses to complaints -- responses that do not square with his own communications with other company insiders over the past year. The Washington Post article that you cited includes a few excerpts from and references to those communications. Of course, Turing -- minus Shkreli and in response to Representative Cummings's memoranda leading up to yesterday's hearing -- may now be saying that it's going to be using most of its revenue for research and development, but congressional investigations have a way of affecting what individuals and corporations say about what they're up to. Even Shkreli, who has a very difficult time keeping his mouth shut, had the good sense not to try to put a different spin on the documentary evidence while under oath.