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High schoolers ‘show up’ Martin Shkreli, recreating price-hiked pill for $2
- dekhn 10y agosynthesizing a molecule in a lab is very different from producing a large scale production-grade pharmaceutical and delivering it to patients. The manufacturing cost is only part of it.
- gus_massa 10y agoAnother detail: Is the pill pure enough to be consumed safely by a human? (Or at least by a rat.)
- dekhn 10y agoI assume the students didn't make a pill so much as produce some substance in a vial. It looks like the synthesis of pyrimethamine (the chemical in question) isn't exactly simple although it's definitely not beyond the capabilities of intelligent, motivated high schoolers with a great chemistry teacher. in the article they said they had it analyzed, and it was pretty pure. That's not quantitative enough to say for sure. With some sleuthing you should be able to find the information for Daraprim and its purity. But there is a big difference from making some small amount of pretty pure substance in a lab, and the process of making production-grade pharmaceuticals at scale.