Martin Shkreli’s decision to disturb the fragile equilibrium in the biotech industry by hiking the price of Daraprim, a drug which had been on the market for decades, from $13.50 to $750, has caused massive ripple effects, and forced none other than Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton to chime in that drug prices will be the next area of government intervention with a likely monthly cap set to be implemented if she becomes president, also leading to the biggest plunge in the biotech stock index in 2015.
To be sure drug treatment costs, already astronomical by many standards, would quietly keep rising months after month, without much public attention as the price hikes were gradual and did not attract much public attention as they were blanketed by various insurance schemes and “distributed” costs… until over the weekend the NYT decided to profile the decision of Turing Pharmaceuticals to boost the price of Daraprim – a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis – by over 5500%.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 09/22/2015.
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