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It is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. But what he did was sell 1 pill for half the price of a bottle with 100 pills. This sounds bad
by hervature 8y ago
It is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. But what he did was sell 1 pill for half the price of a bottle with 100 pills. This sounds bad until you consider most hospitals were throwing out the bottles completely unused before the expiry date. Most hospitals were happy because now they were only wasting half as much money.
- ourmandave 8y agoIt is easy to demonize Shkreli when you look at the 5000% number. Yes, it is. Very easy. And why would a hospital buy so many pills if they knew they're eventually going to throw them away by the 100s? And what supplier only sells low demand pills by the 100 count?
- hervature 8y agoHospitals HAVE to buy the pills because they need to be able to handle rare conditions if they occur. Shkreli FIXED the issue of only supplying 100 counts by offering a 1 count option. But obviously the overhead of manufacturing is the largest component of pill production. So he couldn't reduce the price by dividing by 100.
- nerdponx 8y agoThat's like saying refugees in the US should be grateful they were detained without recourse, rather than detained and beaten.
- hervature 8y agoNo, not at all. Also, classic straw man. I'm saying statistics can be used to sensationalize a topic which clearly HN is on this issue due to my down votes. Note that I never defended his actions, simply stated that Shkreli is demonized for a stupid number with no context instead of focusing on his crimes - lying to investors - or the underlying issues that allowed him to raise prices - broken health insurance.
- dondawest 8y agoI couldn’t agree with you more. Shkreli was a symptom of a broken system, not a disease in and of himself. Punishing Shkreli is like treating the symptoms of a disease without addressing the actual causes of the disease: broken health insurance, etc. Shkreli ultimately just trolled the media too hard and they HAD to shut him down because if he kept going he was going to inspire a lot of copycats.
- mikeash 8y agoDo you have a source for this? I did a quick search and couldn’t find anything. I did find the company saying they’d use the extra money to develop new drugs, which wouldn’t make much sense if the change actually brought in less money.
- hervature 8y agoIt seems like I got two stories mixed up. Here is one showing they started selling smaller bottles: https://www.fiercepharma.com/financials/turing-offers-discounts-instead-of-cutting-controversial-list-price-on-daraprim https://www.fiercepharma.com/financials/turing-offers-discou... Here is another one where they charge $1 for uninsured patients that make less than 5x the poverty line (most Americans): https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-shame-pharma-bro-shkreli-is-in-prison-but-daraprims-price-is-still-high/2018/05/04/ade40860-4f7b-11e8-85c1-9326c4511033_story.html?utm_term=.df1b6a8d1790 https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-s... While not my original claim, my point remains, the 5000% number is incredibly misleading.
- mikeash 8y agoI don’t understand. How does this make the 5000% number misleading?
- hervature 8y agoThe 5000% number is misleading because that’s the most sensational metric. For example, let’s say that the price of the drug was $0. Then he raised it to $1. Is he an awful person for raising the drug infinite %? It’s simply bad reporting. If you hate Fox News and their headlines, you should also hate these headlines.
- mikeash 8y agoPercentages certainly can be misleading, but they aren’t always. Your hypothetical is an example of how they can be. Consider a different hypothetical: the price was $13.50 and he raised it to $750. Is it misleading to report that as raising the price 5000%?