http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/bu...ests.html?_r=0

I'm of two minds on the subject.

On the one hand, the guy sounds like a real piece of ****. He is shamelessly price gouging an extremely vulnerable population, and his actions could very possibly result in unneeded deaths.

On the other hand, this isn't all THAT different from what established drug companies already routinely do. The argument that pharmaceutical companies routinely make is they invest billions of dollars in R&D, and they need to charge a borderline outrageous price to fund their R&D and generate an attractive ROI for investors. Suppose that this guy is legitimately going to invest the proceeds from this into R&D on new drugs. If that is the case, then one could simply argue that all he has done is reverse the order of what established companies are already doing, and ethically he hasn't really done anything wrong at all.

Thoughts?

My first thought as I started reading the article was why aren't others pharma companies just making the drug also? The answer from the article

Worrying.

kill him

Ironic that Daraprim treats a parasitic infection. Someone do me favor and synthesize a drug which treats infection caused by the parasite known as Martin Shkreli.

Slowly.

I'm not in favor of killing him slowly

I sent this article via Facebook to my best friend, a pharmacist in the DC area. His response, just now:

"Yeah, I can't even dispense that drug anymore because it's now designated as a specialty item. I have an open bottle on my shelf that will just sit there until its expiration date."

(from the article...

"Although some price increases have been caused by shortages, others have resulted from a business strategy of buying old neglected drugs and turning them into high-priced 'specialty drugs.'”)

Pharmacist friend response to post #8, which I sent to him:

'Yep. Had someone request brand name Tenormin the a few months back. It's an old beta blocker. Apparently some company bought the rights to the brand and now a bottle of 100 tabs costs $1600. A bottle of the generic for 1000 tabs might cost $50-$100?'

Ironically, a man who manages risk for a living, has somehow arrived at the conclusion that this risk is worth taking.

No doubt, there are people plotting.

Oh, you had to. In keeping with your message from futility of ambition thread.

Question, do risk management professionals account for the chance of armed revolt should their practices defy the local commoner's sense of what is 'moral'?

I guess we'll find out over the next 2 years or so.

I'd assume it would have crossed his mind, as a bullet may very well do.

Yeah, but he's not figuring to be in the crosshairs, literally or metaphorically, because the subject at hand is not properly understood. Why would he, as a former hedge fund manager, enter this field in the first place? Precisely because of the gap between his knowledge and that of the public. Here's hoping his risk assessment soon proves antiquated soon enough, like, as of tomorrow.

It'll likely result in the creation of some sort of regulation, as usual: so as to prevent these incidents from becoming more common in the future.

Maybe he's done this to raise awareness of the need for institutional oversight in the pharma industry, while making some buck?

From $13.50 to $750 a pill? More going on here than just trying to turn a buck. Who the hell can afford it at this price?

Sounds like some Bernie Sanders type wanting to jump start the Socializing of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

Yeah that must be it, Hedge Funds are well known for being full of Socialists.

There should be a law requiring drug companies to make samples of commercially available drugs available to other researchers.

That's assuming it's true that there's a problem getting samples. (I'm a tad skeptical that's true)

Don't monopoly laws apply to this kind of situation? If not, why not?

Get a 'script filled, ship it to Cuba. They're world leaders in generic knockoffs.

Then demand Helms compensation.

Can let it spool off a year or two. As long as the AMA makes sure the right individuals get this drug and pay through the nose for it. Bit of econterrorism.

Sure, he's running a con, so the idea is to run a Copper Comeback on him.

That last sentence has a very big "if" in it. The pharmaceutical argument is not false. Drug research is extremely expensive and most of the research is expended on drugs that fail during the development process. For pharma ventures to be sustainable the successful drugs have to pay for the all of the failures as well as their own costs all adjusted for the discounted value of future earnings since the development of a drug can easily take many years.

The chance that this vulture is going to take on any of that drug development cost is nil. He is morally reprehensible imo. I would not piss on him if he was on fire.

Time for some applied Cheating the Cheater theory.


PairTheBoard

Which can be improved if one applies the car brakes tailgating self defense kill the bear with his own weight approach. Basically get him what a hedge fund manager loves likely after studying his life for a while, which may be highly imaginative sex and drugs while under the tremendous stress of another greedy business deal and make sure the sex is from HIV positive women that need his drug which he priced that way now. And while at it lets make a movie as well. Lets call it Wall Street 3 Arbitrage Greed to its knees...

I haven't seen mention that he broke any laws. I'm wondering at the outrage that some nasty bastard did something nasty in a world full of nasty bastards. Currently Volkswagen has been caught cheating on emissions and who knows how much pollution, that affects far more people, got released. Ford hid evidence about it's disintegrating tires leading to many deaths. I don't remember which auto company hid evidence about exploding gas tanks that could have been prevented w/ a low cost fix.

Some douche sees a play and makes it and everybody goes bonkers but we all get played every minute of every day.