Pharma asswipe strikes again

[Scooter]

Remind me again why price controls on drugs are such a horrible idea:

After dropping $2 million on a Wu-Tang Clan album, the pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli has found a new project: making an essential treatment unaffordable for poor immigrants from Latin America.

Shkreli, otherwise known as “pharma bro,” gained notoriety earlier this year when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, increased the price of a drug used to treat AIDS patients from around $13.50 to $750. He’s now the CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, which recently announced its plans to submit benznidazole, a treatment for Chagas disease purchased earlier this month, for Food and Drug Administration approval next year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 300,000 people in the United States have the deadly disease. Most of them are immigrants from Latin America, where as many as 8 million people are infected.

Right now, doctors in the U.S. obtain benznidazole free of charge through the CDC. According to Rachel Cohen, the regional executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative in North America, the drug sells in Latin America for somewhere between $60 and $100 for each course of treatment. Both of these would change the moment the FDA approved benznidazole from any company—and Shkreli, in particular, seems determined to price this drug out of reach of the people who need it. In filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, KaloBios wrote that it expects to price the Chagas drug similarly to antivirals for Hepatitis C, which can cost almost $100,000 for a single course of treatment in the United States.

“You’re talking about a 100,000 percent or 150,000 percent price increase” from the current cost in Latin America, Cohen said.

[Long Run]

There should be some sort of regulation to prevent this type of arbitrage. The tactic provides no positive to healthcare (quite the opposite) and benefits only the bloodsuckers who are hoping to make a lot of money off of insurance premium payers and taxpayers (plus result in non-insureds not having access).

[MajGenl.Meade]

Let us hope that Nifurtimox will remain available from the CDC, should this man succeed in obtaining FDA registration to market the drug. It's been available since 1971 - I wonder why no one has ever obtained registration status?

The FDA does not "approve" of drugs or medical devices. They "allow" products to go to market based upon test results provided by the requestor and others. AFAIK.

Presumably there must exist already a large body of data on the drug's effectiveness, adverse reactions, risks and so forth. He may not have to do very much to get the product registered, especially the usage by CDC for all these years kind of gives it a bit of status as a worthwhile treatment.

[rubato]

Remind me again why price controls on drugs are such a horrible idea: ... "

Because it hurts the profits of people the Republicans have been kissing ass to lo all these many years?


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Kissing ass too low? Kissing ass too, lo? Kissing as to lo? Why are all these Republicans kissing you at all?

[Scooter]

Oh, karma is SUCH a bitch!

Martin Shkreli, the CEO of an American drugs company who hiked the price of life-saving HIV drugs from $13.50 to $750, was reportedly been arrented on securities fraud charges relating to a firm that he founded.

Shkreli earned the nickname "most hated man on the internet" after he bought the rights to Daraprim, a drug used to treat those with weakened immune systems caused by illnesses like HIV. He then hiked up the price of the drug by 5,000 per cent from $13.50 per pill to $750.

He was charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it pay off debts from unrelated business dealings, Bloomberg reported.

[Lord Jim]

I just heard that on the news and was going to post about it...



Hopefully he'll get a nice long stretch in the slammer, and lose eveyr penny of his ill-gotten gains in civil suits...

I also hope somebody got his perp walk on video...

I'm also looking forward to his mugshot, and his first appearance in an orange jump suit...

[wesw]

ha!

he likes his profit, doesn t he?

well..., orange is the new black....

with any luck he will be in the black soon.....

[Lord Jim]

He's awfully cute; I'm sure he'll be real popular...

[Lord Jim]

It will be interesting to see what happens at his bond hearing...

A guy with his resources and demonstrated lack of scruples facing serious charges and potentially a lot of time is clearly a serious flight risk...

If it were up to me, he'd be held without bond...

However a guy with his resources is also going to have first class legal representation, so I'm thinking he may get a deal like Madoff had...

A large bond, surrender his passport, and home confinement with an ankle monitor...

Much better than he deserves...

ETA:

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers is scheduled to hold a press conference with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at noon EST (1700 GMT) to announce the charges, his office said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-c ... IM20151217

[MajGenl.Meade]

Three posts in a row, LJ? C'mon!

[wesw]

not even trump would defend this guy..., I hope.

(insert lawyer joke here)

[BoSoxGal]

TrumptyDump would do anything for a buck.

[Joe Guy]

[MajGenl.Meade]

Martin Shkreli, the CEO of an American drugs company who hiked the price of life-saving HIV drugs from $13.50 to $750, was reportedly been arrented on securities fraud charges relating to a firm that he founded.

......"was reportedly been arrented..." Almost sounds Christmassy. "Here we go a-renting" I guess he's hit bottom.

[Lord Jim]

Three posts in a row, LJ? C'mon!

Two posts and an "ETA", actually...

And the two posts are 44 minutes apart, not 44 seconds apart...

The reviled poster boy of drug price hikes perpetuated a Ponzi scheme on investors in a hedge fund and pharmaceutical company he had founded and previously led, prosecutors alleged Thursday.

Martin Shkreli, a pharmaceutical industry entrepreneur previously criticized for raising the price of life-saving drugs such as those used to fight HIV and cancer, was arrested early Thursday in New York City and indicted on criminal and civil securities fraud charges

Shkreli's detention was not related to drug prices but instead stems from allegations by federal prosecutors that he illegally took stock from Retrophin — a biotechnology company he started in 2011 and exited in 2014 — to pay off unrelated debts.

Evan Greebel, a New York lawyer who served as Retrophin's outside counsel, was also arrested on similar charges, FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser said.

Prosecutors charged Shkreli with two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of securities fraud. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concurrently filed a separate civil complaint.

Shkreli potentially faces a maximum 20-year federal prison term if convicted on the top conspiracy count.

Investigators accused Shkreli and his now-defunct hedge fund MSMB Capital of defrauding investors by falsifying investment returns, using company funds to settle personal disputes with investors, unjustly enriching himself with company funds and forming false ties to consultants.

For example, Martin Shkreli told one investor on Dec. 2, 2010, that his hedge fund had $35 million assets, but it only had $700, according to the indictment.

At a press conference, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers charged that Shkreli, with Greebel's help, used Retrophin as his personal "piggy bank" to funnel millions of dollars in illegal repayments to investors he'd defrauded in virtually defunct hedge funds.

"These charges in today's indictment highlight the brazenness and breadth of Shkreli's schemes and the outrageous web of lies and deceit weaved by both defendants," Capers said.

Caper said the investigation was continuing and could lead to additional charges. Shkreli was scheduled to be arraigned later Thursday afternoon in Brooklyn federal court.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/201 ... /77469752/

[TPFKA@W]

Why do I doubt he will do any time?

[MajGenl.Meade]

@DTforPres.com notes that

"Shkreli" is not only a foreign-sounding name but is an anagram of L-Shriek, which is obviously just a simple disguise for El-Shriek, a notorious refugee terrorist. How did this man get into our fair country? He'll be doing some shrieking soon!

[wesw]

"the reviled poster boy..."

[MajGenl.Meade]

Three posts in a row, LJ? C'mon!

Two posts and an "ETA", actually...

And the two posts are 44 minutes apart, not 44 seconds apart...

Well, it looks like 3 in a row to me although there was a minor fluctuation in the force between #1 and #2 (which is appropriate, I suppose)