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Following Public Fury, Jim Cramer-Trained CEO Who Raised Price Of Drug By 5000%, Agrees To Lower The Price
It took just a few days, and becoming America's most hated man in the process, for Turing Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli to fold.
The 32 year old "hedge fund manager", who started his career on Wall Street working under Jim Cramer, and who subsequently ended up owing now-defunct Lehman Brothers $2.3 million for a Put option gone bad (only to see Lehman collapse before the now defunct bank could collect), was the object of nationwide scorn, derision and outrage after a NYT profile of his decision to boost the price of a drug by over 5000%. Even Hillary Clinton got involved in the public outrage, first tweeting and then making it a matter of her public policy how as a result of his actions she would implement a $250 price cap on drugs to prevent such price gouging. Earlier today, the Taiwanese Animators took "Big Pharma Douchebag" Shkreli to task with the following clip:
Not surprisingly, following the biggest plunge in biotech stocks in 2015 - many have speculated that the real goal of Shkreli's actions was to profit by shorting the biotech sector ahead of the selling which his action would have unleashed - and an epic public outcry against the diminutive "hedge fund" manager (his prior company Retrophin recently filed a federal lawsuit against Shkreli alleging that he created the biotech and took it public solely to provide stock to MSMB investors when his hedge fund became insolvent; the suit seeks $65 million in damages) NBC reported moments ago that "the pharmaceutical company boss under fire for increasing the price of the drug Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent said Tuesday he will lower the cost of the life-saving medication."
Martin Shkreli did not say what the new price would be, but expected a determination to be made over the next few weeks.
He told NBC News that the decision to lower the price was a reaction to outrage over the increase in the price of the drug from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York bought the drug from Impax Laboratories in August for $55 million and raised the price. Shkreli said Tuesday the price would be lowered to allow the company to break even or make a smaller profit.
He added that his action was "absolutely a reaction — there were mistakes made with respect to helping people understand why we took this action, I think that it makes sense to lower the price in response to the anger that was felt by people." One would not have gotten that impression from reading his tweets over the past 4 days.
In a phone interview with NBC Shkreli said the money from the increase would be used to develop better treatment for toxoplasmosis that have fewer side effects. "It's very easy to see a large drug price increase and say 'Gosh, those people must be gouging.' But when you find out that the company is not really making any money, what does that mean?"
Well, it means it is like 90% of "eyeball" and "biotech" companies out there, that's what it means.
His conclusion: "I think in the society we live in today it's easy to want to villainize people, and obviously we're in an election cycle where this is very, very tough topic for people and it's very sensitive. And I understand the outrage," Shkreli said.
It's even easier to villainize those who deserve it.
But now that Shkreli's 15 minutes of fame are over and his Twitter profile is now in "private" mode (we doubt the SEC will investigate his shorting activity of biotech indices - we are confident the young "hedge funder" will have bigger headaches to deal with soon enough) the attention should shift to the real villains - those truly big pharma companies, who do what Shkreli did but on a far vaster and grander, if less obvious, scale taking advantage of the price cushioning effects that Obamacare provides.
We also are curious to see how Hillary's populist outrage at Shkreli will be explained when the public realizes that it is only thanks to the benefits of socialized insurance programs such as Obamacare, of which Hillary is a staunch supporter, that such price gouging was possible in the first place.
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Financial services industry is infested with scumbags like him. He is small beer compared to what the others have done and got away with.
But when enough believe the system will never again serve them they wont care for the rules of law.
This guy will get hammered by his Superiors for making the game too obvious.
I hope so....
What's this guy last name? Shekel?
Hopefully one of the million people who threatened his life over this has the balls to go through with it. Some corrective in this sector is sorely needed.
He can do it cause Big Pharma teams up with the gov to regulate away competition. The fda can destroy a company during drug trials. A great drug, no side effects and all the trial participants love it, but all the fda has to say is the trial is inconclusive. Then the company, which has just burned thru millions for a double-blind study, has to raise millions more for another study, and the fda can say "inconclusive" again.
And people are fooling themselves if they don't think it happens.
I'm sure that proper application of funds can smooth the approval process.
Donald Rumsfeld and Aspartame for the motherfucking WIN!
Boy, those Taiwanese Animators don't know when to quit.
He was groomed under Jim Cramer's Charity Fund stocks. You cannot make this shit up.
http://www.jim-cramer-charitable-trust-stocks.com/
WOW there's a lot of hate for this guy.
Is it true that other drugs are priced higher? Is it true that his company is not profitable at the current price? Is it true that they give away much of the drug for free or $1 to those who can't afford it?
Do you guys believe that the government should step in and force this company to sell their products at a specific price? Maybe the government should just nationalize them and any other company that people are unhappy with while they're at it? This is some heavy socialist shit right here. Ayn Rand is probably rolling over in her grave right now.
This is the modern day version of a witch hunt. Look at all the calls for the guy to be killed for how he runs his business. I don't see any calls for him to be given a fair trial (and not sure what he would be charged with).
Do you think we the taxpayers ought to get some of the profit because we give tax breaks that these assclowns receive, for basically "re naming" a medication we already paid to develop?
Obama was right in the Pharma world "You DID NOT build that", the taxpayers get ripped off twice by big pharma.
Big Pharma.
Big Medicine.
Big Finance.
Trifecta of evil.
I think the taxpayers ought to take that out on their government, who regulates the industry and allows these sorts of monopolies to exist. Unfortunately, they're more likely to use this as an excuse for even more government regulations and kick the can down the road until the next big scandal breaks.
It is entirely possible that Shkreli is not a scumbag but really does need to raise the price of the drug for his company to survive. Unlikely, perhaps, but possible, and I'm not going to condemn him without knowing all of the facts. So far I haven't seen many facts, just a lot of emotional outbursts.
Did you not read the part that said he was trained by Jim Cramer? What a moron you are.
An opportunist during an engineered global economic meltdown deserves this.
"In September 2015, he was criticized by several public health organizations for obtaining manufacturing licenses on old, out-of-patent, life-saving medicines including pyrimethamine (brand name Daraprim) and increasing the prices of the drugs in the US, sometimes by more than 5000%. Pyrimethamine is listed in the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, a list of the most important medications needed in a basic health system. He was accused of manipulating the price and taking these basic drugs out of of reach of millions of needy patients worldwide.[4]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Shkreli
Interesting how wikipedia says "he was accused of manipulating the price and taking these basic drugs out of of reach of millions of needy patients worldwide" and references a New York Times article. In that article, I don't see anything about the drug being out of reach of millions of needy patients worldwide.
I don't see facts here, just emotionally-charged assertions.
We don't hate Jim. He creates his own circus events. We just can't like him on Facebook. Are paws don't work on the keyboard. /lol
Creepy Monkey Circus - YouTube
.
STFU. There is business then there is bad business. If you don't know the difference you get to know it some day. Hope you survive it.
In a free market this wouldn't work. Another company would be able to step up. But in government controlled medical industry prices are easily manipulated and the FDA can stop any new introduction of drugs. This guy isn't the problem, more like the distraction. I'm guessing put up to it by the Clinton's.
There's business that's acceptable to you and business that's not. You fancy yourself the judge, jury and executioner. That may become the case if the country collapses and degenerates into chaos, but at the moment we still have a justice system. Yes, the system may be corrupt or flawed, but going back to witch hunting would hardly be an improvement.
but going back to witch hunting would hardly be an improvement
If that is the case than the entire American revolution was a terrible mistake.
$750 per pill on a medical monopoly sounds reasonable to you? Remove his privledge to be the only producer, then you can talk about free market pricing. He is competing with no one.
"The guy is an HRC contributor and supporter; this ruse was an attempt to make the email server scandal "old news"."
http://deflationland.blogspot.com/2015/09/martin-shkreli-is-clinton-camp...
So thats what those missing emails were about.
No, the missing emails are about her selling our foreign policy and national security secrets to foreign governments in exchange for personal self-enrichment laundered through the Clinton Foundation, brokered by Huma (who spend her entire childhood in Saudi Arabia).
I agree. And based on your succinct and astute observation, she is perfectly qualified to lead this nation.
Probably the best qualifiied based on that metric.
So if the guy bought up all USA water rights then charged $5 a gallon, some here say Govt should not step in because that would be socialism. Too bad about the results it would have on the population.
Monopolies of any product lead to moral ethical and practical corruption. This guy went full retard in his corruption, extreme greed, because he can.
The guy should be held up as THE example of all that is wrong with the system and the corruption of Congress.
The only monopoly that matters is the monopoly on government. Who owns that one?
Kikes.....
(The usual suspects)
When they do that, they're be receiving a whole lot of lead as payment.
Do it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPXHzV8cwrw
DO IT!
BURN IT DOWN NOW<> FUCK THESE THIEVING NO GOOD RENTIER PIECES OF SHIT
I have rarely seen the ZH community so unified on any matter. This is deeply gratifying to me.
Fucking piece of sub-human shit this guy is!
Hold on, I need to take a "Martin Shkreli".
Now, what were you saying?
Millenials.
Jimmy and the Pope will be pimping Fiat Stawks. (Fix it again Tony).
Cramer is a fraud just like QE policy. They are both coming to a deserving end where there will be a personal cost assigned to it.
Dumb fuck can't even properly boil a frog. If he has any consideration whatsoever for the WEF's reputation, he won't show his face in Davos next year.
He's just doing what big pharma does, I know of at least two drugs that have gone through this in the last five years, doxycycline and colchicine. And some others, apparently. All much more heavily used.
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150115/NEWS/301159978
http://www.pharmacypracticenews.com/ViewArticle.aspx?d=Policy&d_id=51&i=June+2015&i_id=1192&a_id=32703
http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Prices-soar-for-some-generic-drugs-5105538.php
Single payer healthcare is more sociaized than Obamacare, which is more fascistic in nature.
been drinking the corn squeezin's have ya, Jethro?
And may be the only way out of this mess: http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-new-shackle-of-serfdom-...
How much longer will the goy worship these despicable kikes?
This is getting to be completely pathetic on the part of the gentiles. Hang these fucks from lamp posts, it's more environmentally friendly than zyklonB
I hope this dandy boy A*S Clown gets Anal Cancer and the only treatment is Salt Water Enemas (At 100,000 Dollars Each)
Charge him $1M for the 9mm round he needs. Fair is fair.
We got Obamacare so we deserve pharma like this. But this feels like a plant from the Clinton camp. Too convenient.
The public will _never_ realize that bushcare, obamacare, "health" insurance, and the rest of the medical cartel structure that has been built with government over a 105 years is responsible. They won't understand that the entire point is to take every penny of their wealth before they die. They won't take the time to understand, they will just be manipulated into the next stage of the con.
Thing is I am not sure how many stages are left before total government control which will be rationing of medical goods and services aiming to save only the productive livestock and achieve population reduction goals.
$13.50 to $750
What a low life scum bag, Goldman would hire him in a heartbeat.
since R&D and marketing on this was probably paid back years ago-the only thing that this company needs to do is make its money back-which would be easy at $13,
so at at a cost of $1.00 per pill they wont have to worry about having to be eating Top Ramen noodles 6 times a week
I noticed how fast e-mail Hillary Benghazi jumped this boy's ass...
Where's SHE been?
Look folks, pharma has been jacking people up forever, and they're just the tip of the health care iceberg. You have inordinately expensive higher education for the same reasons: government involvement AND socially-irresponsible corporate behavior--at MANY levels.
I used to ask the question, "Why does it cost more than $250,000 for a heart transplant...when the heart is donated?"
Got blank stares from peers.
This guy is an example of extreme (genius) arrogance without a social dimension to his whole being. May well have been raised in a lab.
He is also an example of the corporate social disconnect plaguing all of us from a variety of angles. For example, a corporation decides to save labor bucks by offshoring shit they'll someday expect YOU to buy without income.
Along with the job goes your livelihood AND your retirement efforts AND your health insurance...
And they could give a shit, all the while claiming it's "good business", just like this excessively-brained, socially-unconscious jerk does with his "new" drug price.
It's all the same.
Don't just stop with this cold kid; get after ALL of them.
Every damned one of them rate it in spades...
m
Wall Street is the land of sociopath
Just doing the only thing he knows how: fleecing muppets.
Where is the class action lawsuits that US is famous for ?
Haven't the drug companies been exempted?
America at it best
Capitalism at its best
or is it Vampirism
Silver bullet anyone
Finally the missing inflation is showing up.
I remember Cramer a few years ago referring to ZH as a bunch of nihilists trying to create chaos (he didn't exactly mention ZH by name, but his target was clear). Who's the nihilist now, Mr. Cramer?
Well here's some quality Cramer work
http://www.idiottax.net/2015/07/is-jim-cramer-good-analyst-no-hes.html
Those screams you hear are every baseball bat in the country saying "Pick me! Pick me!"
And he got all the publicity he was after in the first place.
This diminutive douche is Hillary's pick for Director of Health and Human Services.
So shall it be a cash system (never going to happen) or a single-payer national plan?
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-new-shackle-of-serfdom-...
This guy is probably getting mad hot pussy and doesn't give a shit what any of you think. Sad facts of life.
whores will whore:: gold diggers will dig gold.
dogs will hunt.
What;'s the problem? We men have a good understanding of nature.
Women love power and money. It's far more sexy to them than a Brad Pitt face or a Fight Club body. Or an honorable personality for most of them.
This guy is the essence of what many women want.
Google "dubai toilet" and 'tag the sponsor' to see some of what our American hotties are up to now in terms of depravity for a few $ moar.
Shitkreli says ''you goyim are anti-semites''
If you go back and look at early videos of Tony Blair, he looks exactly like this guy.
This is one of these 40 million immigrants who snuck in "legally" over the last 30 years.
Real credit to America.
Let them eat shit.
I wish he will have cancer one day and taste his own poison.
This guy is so bad he has to be a plant to direct attention away from one thing and toward another.
Did Obamacare cover it?
Guys, guys, guys and girls. This is classic misdirection, smoke and mirrors for the lumenproles to digest, get agitated and "Rage against the machine" Again and again people fail to understand the basics and vent their spleen against the wrong enemy. My understanding of copyright and intellectual property is reasonable as I research and writen about fake drugs and real drugs(without the expensive active ingredients) flooding Africa and the 3rd world from unscrupulous Indian pharmaceutical salesmen and women, which is another fucked up story and reality entirely.
So let me give my fellow Zero-Hedgers a quick synopsis of reality......... Pyrimethamine (trade name Daraprim) is a medication used for Protozoal infections. It is commonly used as an anti-malaria drug (for both treatment and prevention of malaria), and to treat Toxoplasma gondii infections, particularly when combined with the Sulfonamide antibiotic Sulfaddiazine when treating HIV-positive individuals. It is on the World Health Organisation List Of Essential Medicines, the most important medications needed in a basic health system.
The Nobel Prize-winning American scientist Gertrude Elion developed the drug at Burroughs-Wellcome (now part of GlaxoSmithKline) to combat malaria. Daraprim has been available since 1953 meaning the patent for Pyrimethamine has expired. In the United States the market for this product is quite small so no generic manufacturer has emerged. In 2010 GlaxoSmithKline sold the marketing rights for Daraprim to CorePharma and in 2015 the rights were bought by Turing Pharmaceuticals.
Drug patents last 20 years(but the U.S and E.U is pushing for longer) and currently can grant up to 5 years of additional protection for drugs ("patent term restoration") if manufactures meet specific goals such as conducting clinical studies for paediatric patients. Think of Nurofen vs Ibuprofen. They are Identical drugs, one is a trade name(which you pay a big premium for) the other is its generic name which you pay cents/pennies for. It really is that simple.
Moral of the story? Big pharma is a business model based on price gouging, on the trade name and while the patent is still active. The same drug sold at criminal prices in the U.S, is sold at different prices around the world. In America with its criminal private health-care system, where the local inhabitants rile against a universal health-care system against commonsense and their best interests, price gouging is common practice and so it should be with collective stupidity shown by the masses.
So the answer for the anti-universal health-care Americans, is to go online and buy the generic version for cents/pennies from the Caribbean, Latin America and South America. I would also say Africa, but the Indians have corrupted the market to such a degree, there is no guarantee you would be getting the real drug and not a fake. There is also an unholy alliance between Big-Pharma, Doctors and Chemists-Drug Stores in the U.S, but that's a whole different chapter.
Shkreli is a shyster and a cunt, lets make no mistake about that, but this outrage is as misplaced and uninformed as the Joseph Kony outrage. I'm more offended that pundits and politcians are claiming a 250% hike is reasonble. These bastards should be hung, drawn and quartered alongside Shkreli.
"Moral of the story? Big pharma is a business model based on price gouging, on the trade name and while the patent is still active. The same drug sold at criminal prices in the U.S, is sold at different prices around the world. In America with its criminal private health-care system, where the local inhabitants rile against a universal health-care system against commonsense and their best interests, price gouging is common practice and so it should be with collective stupidity shown by the masses"
It is not in best interest and common sense to have a universal system. It is in best interest and commmon sense to have an anti monopolistic free market system, in which competition brings down prices.
When only Sony made blu-ray players they cost $1,000. Once competiton kicked in, the price eventually dropped 90%.
This guy is an economics moron. Supply is adequate, demand is extremely small, and he raises the price. Something tells me that he will discover that drug pricing is elastic I'm afraid, and no one will want to prescribe it. I think the news media said it was only prescribed about 800 times last year.
So what is the story? The guy is a con artist hedge fund manager. He knows that raising the price will reduce demand to zero, which is what he wants, so he can take a loss on his 'investment'. That's the goal of any hedge fundie to drive demand to zero. If anyone wants that particular drug, they just fly to europe or anywhere else they have price controls and buy the stuff. How hard is that.
You don't understand this situation.
There is NO alternative in the US. There are about 33,000 folks in the US/UK/Canada who need this drug each year. Because of the small demand there is no economic case for another generic manufactorer to step in. This guy owns the US supply chain and a drug company friend of mine said you could raise the price to 5000 a pill and it still wouldn't make any economic sense for another manufactorer to enter the approval process needed to begin production.
You are right it is made in both India and China but illegal to import into the US. So there is zero elasticity.
There is a lot of speculation that he has another motive however, and that is to force a relaxing of importation rules by the FDA.
What would have probably happened though is that the FDA used emergency regulations to allow the importation of just this single drug.
BTW: Goes without saying this guy is an immoral POS - it's just that his opportunity was created by the byzantine FDA and their approval process.
even bofore this story broke the drug cost $13.50 in the USA and $0.66 here in the UK.
You were already getting fleeced before this scum started making decisions
jim cramers is gonna get shot one day............you could not pay me to do what that mother fucker does
When you observe something like this from a non-financier perspective you can't help but think of other things like gasoline. What a joke our culture has become. Greed is not really the backbone of capitalism. A hunger to succeed and make money is much different than pure greed.
How the heck does a young guy like that find himself in such a position anyway? Anyone know the background?
"self-made" millionaire, but his fathers millions helped a bit. There are no coincidences, only oligarchy.
You can always count on the Hildabeast jumping in with some totally unwarranted new law or regulation "to make sure this doesn't happen again" while she steals millions and lets Americans die on her watch. What a farce, she doesn't even know what the problem really is much less how to formulate a solution without vomiting forth liberal agendas as a solution to everything.
The ultimate reactionary.
Uses emotion to manipulate her sub 100 IQ 'supporters' and they aren't smart enough to use their cerebral cortex, and simply operate off of how something feels right now.
Universal suffrage has destroyed this country, along with a great many other chosenite ideas that have infiltrated here since, oh about 1913 or so.
Please don't call Hillary a liberal. She is a neocon. A liberal used to be someone who believed in equal rights, now it is used to describe people who support fascism. The word has become meaningless.
FINALLY a comment I an appreciate. The "Normal terms" that people use DO NOT apply. It is the same as the word, "Conservative." It now means SOCIAL but there was a time that meant, "FISCAL." NO ONE is conservative with tax revenue and spending. We are so fucking broken, broke and breaking that it is no longer tolerable to be considered a Proud American. I can have no pride in this country.
"some totally unwarranted new law or regulation "to make sure this doesn't happen again" "
That's the problem with idiots like this Shkreli toad. He becomes a poster boy for increased regulation, and everybody in the great unwashed electorate will scream for it. He couldn't steal in moderation, oh no.
Pure greed. Disgusting.
Ah, now I know what happened. This guy looks like a complete douchebag. And he's probably got some gold digging twat hanging on his arm telling him how awesome he is.
Hey, they're expensive if you get the good ones. Plus all the debt he used to take over the company, plus the "business meetings" in Hawaii or Monaco and someday he might convince somebody to have kids with him and he will have to send the brats to Harvard or someplace . . . It costs money to be a complete douchebag.
just that kind of face... you want to shit on it and punch it but aren't sure which one to do first.
Don't let your feelings carry you away. Punch first, it's neater.
Looks like ZH is full of commies. If you get AIDS in the year 2015, there are pretty much no one else to blame than yourself.
Yeah.You said it.And cancer too! Everybody knows that a promiscuous gay lifestyle is the reason you get cancer. Dam ZH commies! Like you said,no one else to blame but yourself. (and asbestos,and genes,and secondhand smoke,etc....)
More fake bullshit to keep the masses enthralled.
HI! We're from big pharma/ama and we're here to help you
die and
take ALL your stuff!
Rape and pillage like a CEO, not a fucking Viking.
Not surprisingly, following the biggest plunge in biotech stocks in 2015 - many have speculated that the real goal of Shkreli's actions was to profit by shorting the biotech sector ahead of the selling which his action would have unleashed...
This is the real move being made.
And we don't need new laws. We just need to put these motherfuckers in FPMITA PRISON for manipulating markets like this.
His conclusion: "I think in the society we live in today it's easy to want to villainize people, and obviously we're in an election cycle where this is very, very tough topic for people and it's very sensitive. And I understand the outrage," Shkreli said.
Shkreli villainized himself. There was no justification for what he did.
someday, someone will take matters into their own hands and do what needs to be done. SET AN EXAMPLE!
I googled "chutzpah" and this guy's face showed up.
He's not alone. After all, the only ethics for our corporate masters is: make the most you can for your shareholders. Last time the world noticed blind arrogance to this degree, it was in France in, oh, about 1788.