Is There a Cure for High Drug Prices?
Last August, Martin Shkreli, then the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, did something considered so reprehensible that he was dubbed “the most hated man in America.” What caused the outrage? He increased the price of a little-known but important drug called Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Daraprim is the best treatment for toxoplasmosis, an infection to which those with HIV/AIDs or cancer are susceptible.
The story went viral, and calls came from around the country, including from U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., to stop drug entrepreneurs from gouging consumers for pure profit. Overnight, Shkreli became theposter child of pharmaceutical greed. And yet raising the price of a drug by that much is 100 percent legal.
What makes the case of Daraprim so important is that it brought a serious—and growing—healthcare problem out into the open: America spends a tremendous amount of money for prescription drugs—$424 billion last year alone before discounts, according to a new report by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a firm that tracks the pharmaceutical industry. And that number is rising fast with no sign of slowing down. What’s more, there are few regulations that shield consumers from the Martin Shkrelis of the world, or from drug companies that decide to raise prices to astronomical levels.
