
Martin Shkreli is at it again: he's planning on jacking up the price of yet another life-saving drug.
Martin Shkreli may be the most hated man in America, and if his latest move is any indication, he doesn’t mind the title.
Shkreli has taken control of a drug that is decades old and is used to treat a serious infectious disease and, as he did before with another life-saving drug, he plans to jack up the price in order to score big profits, according to a CNBC report.
The drug treats Chagas disease, which is a parasitic infection that can result in heart problems that could lead to death. The fact that Shkreli has taken control of the drug has left the Chagas community in a state of uproar.
Shkreli is trying to make money off a federal program that is intended to encourage companies to develop drugs for neglected diseases by collecting vouchers and then selling them to other companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. Shkreli is trying to get a voucher by having the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approve the Chagas disease drug. Since the drug is already heavily used in tropical countries where Chagas is most prevalent, the move takes advantage of a loophole because Shkreli isn’t developing a new drug but simply getting FDA approval of a drug that’s already in wide usage.
Shkreli first exploded onto the public scene in September when his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, snatched up a drug that has been around for 62 years that treats a parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis. He raised the price of a single pill from $13.50 to $750, causing a huge uproar.
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