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wilwheaton:

This is Martin Shkreli. He’s a despicable piece of shit.

Why? You ask?

Well:

Specialists in infectious disease are protesting a gigantic overnight increase in the price of a 62-year-old drug that is the standard of care for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection.

The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing
immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the
annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of
dollars.

[…]

“This
isn’t the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying
to stay in business,” Mr. Shkreli said. He said that many patients use
the drug for far less than a year and that the price was now more in
line with those of other drugs for rare diseases.

“This
is still one of the smallest pharmaceutical products in the world,” he
said. “It really doesn’t make sense to get any criticism for this.”

[…]

Yeah, nobody really uses this drug, so he’s totally doing a great thing! Oh, except for:

Turing’s price increase could bring sales to tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars a year if use remains constant. Medicaid
and certain hospitals will be able to get the drug inexpensively under
federal rules for discounts and rebates. But private insurers, Medicare and hospitalized patients would have to pay an amount closer to the list price.

Well, this is probably just a one time thing. I mean, he’s only 32 and … oh.

In 2011, Mr. Shkreli started Retrophin, which also acquired old
neglected drugs and sharply raised their prices. Retrophin’s board fired
Mr. Shkreli a year ago. Last month, it filed a complaint in
Federal District Court in Manhattan, accusing him of using Retrophin as
a personal piggy bank to pay back angry investors in his hedge fund.

This is what happens when a country like America allows something as fundamental as the health of the human beings who live in this country to be a thing that shitbags like Martin Shkreli can use to get rich. This is disgusting, and wrong, and nothing will be done to stop this because PROFITS.

(via Drug Goes From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight – The New York Times)