Prescription Pricing Essay

His company’s decision to raise the price of a lifesaving drug by more than 4,000 percent, from $1,130 to $63,000. An entrepreneur who acquired the rights to produce a life-saving drug then increased its price more than 50-fold overnight is defending his decision with assertions that the profits will help create better medicines in future. The Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association sent a joint, open letter to Turing Pharmaceuticals earlier in September, complaining that the sudden, steep price increase for Daraprim was “unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population” and also that it was “unsustainable for the health care system. Shkreli said hiking the price of Daraprim was simply a “ business decision.” My initial reaction was that why would Shkreli want to raise the price that high even
another company could take notice of Shkreli and Turing's stunt and decide try to make a profit by selling its own generic version of Daraprim for a cheaper price. Since it’s clearly the best drug every companies will try to produce it and sell it with lower price so it’s a competition. Prescription pricing is a strange thing to stir such rage, however. After all, Daraprim, the drug in question, is not widely used. It treats a potentially deadly condition called toxoplasmosis that primarily affects people with compromised immune systems, such as newborns and HIV patients. lthough Shkreli has delivered different, at times conflicting statements about why his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of Daraprim, his answer has often boiled down to this: because of capitalism. It’s unlikely that Shkreli set out to stir a debate about the limits of the American economic system, but that’s effectively what he has done. The controversy comes at a time of broad concern over inequality in this country. Bernie Sanders has made a presidential campaign out of the issue. Even Donald Trump is talking about raising taxes on the