Drugmakers calculated price boosts with profit in mind, memos say
Martin Shkreli anticipated huge profits from raising the price of a decades-old drug for infectious disease, belying any notion that helping patients was foremost in his mind, according to information released by congressional investigators Tuesday.
Shkreli practically gloated about the potential profits in an e-mail he sent in August, just after his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, had paid $55 million to acquire the drug Daraprim, and had raised its price more than fiftyfold to $750 a pill, or $75,000 for a bottle of 100.
The e-mail excerpt is included in a memo released by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, in advance of a committee hearing on Thursday about drug price increases.
Turing said in a statement Tuesday that it set the drug price to balance patient access to our existing drugs with investment in research and value generation for our shareholders.’’
Shkreli has argued that Daraprim was such a small-selling drug that the price increase would not affect the health care system, and that the company would help with co-payments and take other steps to make sure that no patient would be denied the drug.
[...] documents released by congressional investigators show that some patients were being hit with co-payments as high as $16,800, and others of $6,000, and Turing was receiving protest from doctors.
On Sept. 17, Tina Ghorban, senior director of business analytics and customer insights, forwarded a single purchase order for 96 bottles of Daraprim at the full price.
Regarding Valeant, the Democratic staff memo says the company identified revenue goals for Isuprel and Nitropress and raised the prices to reach those goals.