Posted on 09/23/2015 4:59:54 PM PDT by GIdget2004
Billionaire businessman Donald Trump on Wednesday tore into a drug company CEO who has drawn national scorn for hiking the cost of a life-saving drug by 4000 percent overnight.
"He looks like a spoiled brat to me. He's a hedge fund guy. I thought it was disgusting what he did," Trump told reporters in South Carolina.
Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceutical, has become the target of bipartisan disdain after making headlines this week for raising costs of a drug from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill overnight.
His inflammatory comments on social media and in TV interviews — calling his price increase "a great thing for society” while berating journalists — have prompted further outcry.
Trump said he was particularly disturbed by the CEO's refusal to back down after a New York Times story publicized the cost increase.
"That guy is nothing. He's zero. He's nothing. He ought to be ashamed of himself," Trump said.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Ok, so what do you do about it? That’s the question.
Boycott his company and anyone that does business with him.
How do you boycott if that’s the manufacturer of the drug you need to stay alive?
The social network jumped all over this dweeb, beat him into submission and he rolled back the price increase. That is “the New World Order” for business in the digital age.
Most of the articles on this subject deliberately overlook a few things:
1. The drug in question has been in production for more than 60 years. There's no patent protection and no proprietary limitations on it. In other words, anyone who wants to produce a generic knock-off can do so freely.
2. One reason why nobody wants to produce generic alternatives to this drug is that it is only used by about 10,000 patients right now. And these patients are typically people with compromised immune systems ... basically, AIDS patients. Would this story get all this attention if it involved another type of user?
I'm going to boycott oxygen.
It’s not a patented drug, so generics can be made. I’m not sure I understand why it’s “hard” for generic companies to get samples of the drug as this article says. If anything should be done legislatively, it should be to make sure nothing stands in the way of these samples being made available to generic drugmakers. Then the free market can take its course.
Maybe the real issue is that it’s such a rarely used drug, there may not be much money available to be made by generic companies to make it worth their time to manufacture it for a low price. Of course that also suggests that the price hike is not going to be that much of a burden to insurers since it’s rarely used.
With the price now high, other companies could conceivably make generic copies, since patents have long expired. One factor that could discourage that option is that Daraprim’s distribution is now tightly controlled, making it harder for generic companies to get the samples they need for the required testing.
The switch from drugstores to controlled distribution was made in June by Impax, not by Turing. Still, controlled distribution was a strategy Mr. Shkreli talked about at his previous company as a way to thwart generics.
“F” Martin, Money grubbing A$$ wipe.
OK. So reduce the patent term for drugs to three years with no renewals. Force the drug companies to earn market share by cutting costs, like most business have to do.
That’s my point, with social networking, then government doesn’t have to get involved, that’s how it should be, let social sanctions work.
Since the drug has been on the market for 50 years there is no high R&D costs to recover.
If he hasn’t rolled back the prices then action needs to be taken.
IMHO he did this for attention. So lets give him loads of negative attention a la “The Man Without a Nation”. No one attends his parties. No one invites him to a party. When he shows up at a restraint you ask to be moved away from his table. You get the picture? If some other nerd joins him, extend to him the same treatment.
He was within his rights to raise the price. We are within our rights to treat him as a total social outcast.
Don’t do drugs.
I don't know why the water companies don't increase the cost of a gallon 100x.
I just heard He doesn't have to play reasonable or fair and he has every right to do this. And we should not criticize him becasue this is the kind of capitalist spirit which made America great.
Now I hear he's rolled the prices back down after this price increase?
What a piece of work he must be.
I would imagine that if the bozo had not rolled back the price. Trump would have bout a pharma manufacturer, and produced the generic, and sold it at half the price of the original price, and still made a profit. That is the Trump way...LOL
I would imagine that if the bozo had not rolled back the price. Trump would have bought a pharma manufacturer, and produced the generic, and sold it at half the price of the original price, and still made a profit. That is the Trump way...LOL
And don't let anyone go "In through the out door."
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