3 ms·
> If Shkreli, and other people like him, didn't exist the drug might not be there in the first place. Right, and the law grants a limited term monopoly for nov
by jlmorton 9y ago
> If Shkreli, and other people like him, didn't exist the drug might not be there in the first place.
Right, and the law grants a limited term monopoly for novel pharmaceutical compounds to encourage innovation. In this case, the patent for Daraprim had long since expired.
What Martin Shkreli did was acquire the marketing and distribution rights for Daraprim, raise the price to $75,000/month, and then withdraw all pharmacy distribution, instead relying on a direct distribution model specifically to prevent other generic drug manufacturers from obtaining the drug for comparison purposes in FDA-required bioequivalence studies.
Is it legal? Sure. But he basically weaponized FDA regulations to reap a substantial profit.
- harryh 9y agoIt sounds to me like the FDA regulations for approving new drug manufacturers haven't been very carefully designed. Whatever ire we have should be focused on them for screwing up the regulatory environment in the first place.
- rayiner 9y agoThe part you’re missing is that nobody else bothered to release a competing generic for all these years because there was no money in the market. And, exactly as you’d expect the market to work, after the price hikes a company did release a generic alternative.