Martin Shkreli responds to Sydney school kids who recreated his overpriced drug for US$2
Source: International Business Times
By Garima Satija on December 02 2016 5:54 PM
Former Hedge Fund Manager Martin Shkreli, popularly called Pharma Bro, shot to notoriety last year after his company bought the rights to life-saving drug Daraprim and raised its priced by over 5,000 percent in the US. Even after Shkreli later reduced the price of the drug, he still remained in public eye since then.
To show that the pricing of Shkrelis drug was exorbitant, a group of eleven school boys from Sydney Grammar School, aged between 16 and 17, recreated the active ingredient of the drug at a shoestring budget in their schools laboratory. Under the guidance of research chemist Alice Williamson and Associate Professor Matthew Todd, the students succeeded in making the drug for mere US$2 (AU$2.70) a pill.
Now, after the news broke out that Australian school boys recreated his drug at a cheap rate, Shkreli rose to limelight once again and became the target of many people on social media. Interestingly, Shkreli responded to the tweets that criticised how he had monopolised the drug, and later released a 55-second video, in which he is seen boasting of his own achievements.
Thereafter, in another tweet, he defended his stance saying that lab scale manufacturing and manufacturing costs millions to maintain.
Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com.au/martin-shkreli-responds-sydney-school-kids-who-recreated-his-overpriced-drug-us2-1535566
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)So. hate. that. guy.
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Tanuki
(14,914 posts)but I had pretty much the same reaction.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Or a sledgehammer.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Norbert
(6,038 posts)buying materials in larger quantities to make a product, production costs to make that product decreases, at least from what I've seen in my 35 years in manufacturing. But what do I know?
ProfessorGAC
(64,852 posts)There is this basic thing called economies of scale. Now i'll give him that the labor cost in this situation was zero, but given the number of kids working on a very small number, even if they were paid that cost would drop dramatically as the scale of production rose.
Took 7 or 8 kids to make this. Well, it would take 5 or 6 trained professionals to make 50,000 pounds. Unless those trained professionals were making a million each, it would still be cheaper.
This guy is a scam artist who read too much Ayn Rand.
Begabig
(76 posts)The Wizard
(12,536 posts)illegitimate spawn.
Pachamama
(16,884 posts)...based on the type of candidates that Trump has been looking at (Mad Dog for Defense, Sessions for Justice, Price for HHS, Palin for VA, DeVos for Education etc) This guy would be a stellar choice based on Trumps selection process.
Imagine....a drug company executive who at the FDA would be the Pharmacy industries fantasy head of the FDA..... He could approve everything and allow Drug companies to gauge and withhold life saving drugs or easily approve others. Maybe even come up with regulations that would prohibit generic drug manufacturers or criminalize and prevent even some Highschool kids in a chemistry lab to produce identical life saving meds at low cost and be punished for showing how it can be done.
And this guy has the perfect arrogance and demeanor to fit right in with the rest of the Trump Wet Dream Team for making America Great Again!!!
Dorian Gray
(13,479 posts)greed greedy greedy greed.
Greed Greed Greed Greed
Greedy greedster
mdbl
(4,973 posts)JudyM
(29,192 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)...same punch-able face.
Ford_Prefect
(7,870 posts)Yavin4
(35,421 posts)harun
(11,348 posts)Please no....