Page 388 - The Case Lab Book

As markets for out-of-patent drugs are often small, and obtaining regulatory
approval to manufacture a generic version is expensive, Turing calculated

that with closed distribution for the product and no competition, it could set
high prices.

DARAPRIM

Shkreli often portrayed as an entrepreneur, hedge fund investor bought
Turing Pharmaceuticals and then acquired and raised the cost of Daraprim,

a life-saving drug for people with HIV and weakened immune systems from
£13.50 per pill to £750 a 5,556% rise.

Daraprim costs about $1 to produce and fights toxoplasmosis, the second
most common food borne disease, which can easily infect people whose
immune systems have been weakened by HIV, chemotherapy, malaria or
pregnancy.

- 2010 GlaxoSmithKline sold marketing rights of Daraprim to
CorePharma. Daraprim sold for $1 per pill.

- 2014 Impax Laboratories bought Core and affiliated companies
for $700m

- 2015 (Aug) Impax sold Daraprim to Turing Pharmaceuticals for
$55m. On the same day Turing announced it had raised $90m

from Mr. Shkreli and other investors.

Daraprim is known generically as pyrimethamine and was first approved by
the Federal Drug Administration in 1953