Current Events > Martin Shkreli is proof that the media is controlled by corporations.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/martin-shkreli-pharmaceuticals-ceo-interview

His "5,000% price hike" on Daraprim affected only insurance companies, forcing them to pay the high prices while the beneficiaries still received the same treatment. Pharmacies would have to pay the full $750 per pill price, while those without insurance would get it for free or at most a dollar per pill, and hospitals would receive heavy discounts (http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/25/news/companies/turing-pharmaceuticals-daraprim-price-drop/index.html and those with insurance still wouldn't see anything close to the full price) This was a move to help encourage research of alternative medicines for toxoplasmosis, a relatively rare disease that currently is ONLY treatable by Daraprim, which Turing holds the patent for in the US.

That brings up another issue that Shkreli has: the FDA requires that alternative drugs be shown to be equivalent to what they're competing with, which is near impossible given that these drugs are often tightly controlled and samples for testing are nigh impossible to get.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/taking-on-the-drug-profiteers

Simply put he pissed off big pharma by fucking with their bottom lines while still having the drug readily available for those in need and highlighting big issues in the pharmaceutical and bureaucratic world of medicine. However you won't see any of this outside opinion pieces.

but yeah 5,000% increase is bad, the pharmacies told me so!
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me: ok
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Imagine actually poorly defending a rich scumbag
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Blue_Inigo posted...

Imagine actually poorly defending a rich scumbag

yeah fuck the courts for sentencing shkreli... oh wait you're not talking about him "defrauding" hedge fund investors are you
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.... the proof that media is owned by corporations is the fact that media is ... owned by corporations. i really dont get what 'proof' is needed to establish that beyond looking up who owns the media <_<
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No
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Fishy posted...

Blue_Inigo posted...

Imagine actually poorly defending a rich scumbag

yeah fuck the courts for sentencing shkreli... oh wait you're not talking about him "defrauding" hedge fund investors are you

Blue_Inigo posted...

Imagine actually poorly defending a rich scumbag

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lmao CE is indoctrinated as fuck

is it because you hate immigrants? you did know shkreli is the son of poor albanian immigrants and is completely self made right?
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well thanks for making it obvious how serious this topic is
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

well thanks for making it obvious how serious this topic is

it's perfectly serious, i have links and evidence for everything i said. i'm sorry if CE just can't shake the "b-but 5000%!" and "but he's so punchable" shit for someone who was actually trying to make the world a better place
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Fishy is literally a idiom that means probably not real.
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Webmaster4531 posted...

Fishy is literally a idiom that means probably not real.

i don't play that stupid gimmick account trash i'm trying to encourage actual thoughtful discussion but it's clear that's impossible here
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Fishy posted...

i don't play that stupid gimmick account trash

Make a new account then. All signs point to a gimmick.
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And why jack up the price of the medication on insurance companies and hospitals?

People had to jump through hoops to prove to Turing that they had a medical and financial need before they got their free medicine.
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Fishy posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

well thanks for making it obvious how serious this topic is

it's perfectly serious, i have links and evidence for everything i said. i'm sorry if CE just can't shake the "b-but 5000%!" and "but he's so punchable" shit for someone who was actually trying to make the world a better place

you won't be able to change their minds.

People don't like admitting when they're wrong. Especially when they've been bamboozled. They'd rather be willingly ignorant.
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The other pharma execs aren't trolling people 24/7
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Fishy posted...

you did know shkreli is the son of poor albanian immigrants and is completely self made right?

I fail to see how this relates to Shkreli being a scumbag. Dusty Rhodes was the son of a plumber too, afterall.
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WalkingLobsters posted...

Fishy posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

well thanks for making it obvious how serious this topic is

it's perfectly serious, i have links and evidence for everything i said. i'm sorry if CE just can't shake the "b-but 5000%!" and "but he's so punchable" shit for someone who was actually trying to make the world a better place

you won't be able to change their minds.

People don't like admitting when they're wrong. Especially when they've been bamboozled. They'd rather be willingly ignorant.

He's was convicted of Fishy posted...

defrauding hedge fund investors

Fishy Lobsters. I'm sensing a theme here.
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Musourenka posted...

And why jack up the price of the medication on insurance companies and hospitals?

hospitals and insurance can afford the price hike, insurance especially. insurance is NOT your friend, they are profit based and will do everything they can to pay you the bottom dollar. forcing them to pay top dollar while still providing the same service forces them to look elsewhere for the drug which, surprise, isn't going to happen because Turing controlled it putting them in a real pickle.

Remember only about 2,000 people in the country use this drug.
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Fishy posted...

Musourenka posted...

And why jack up the price of the medication on insurance companies and hospitals?

hospitals and insurance can afford the price hike, insurance especially. insurance is NOT your friend, they are profit based and will do everything they can to pay you the bottom dollar. forcing them to pay top dollar while still providing the same service forces them to look elsewhere for the drug which, surprise, isn't going to happen because Turing controlled it putting them in a real pickle.

Remember only about 2,000 people in the country use this drug.

I know they can afford it, but what's the point of charging them to so? That money isn't going to those in need; Turing's investors are pocketing it.

All I see is, at best, a big trolling effort by Shrkeli.
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He defrauded companies/ people out of millions of dollars by setting up a pyramid scheme to pay back investors from his other failed company. The guy is a fraud and criminal and i'm not even talking about his drug matter.
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Musourenka posted...

And why jack up the price of the medication on insurance companies and hospitals?

I watched a video interview with him and a patient on Daraprim. When Shkreli drops the entitled, douchy troll act he can sound rather reasonable and articulate. His justification was what Fishy mentioned, by jacking up the prices to insurance companies, it's providing a market incentive for other pharma companies to develop a new drug since Daraprim is old and expensive to make, and in his opinion, a better option could be developed. The problem is that Daraprim is a very niche drug. It treats a rare complication of a low incidence chronic condition, so the pool of available "customers" is extremely low, and the research costs of any drug is astronomical. It's cost-effective to make new diabetes drugs, sure, but making a drug for less than 1% of the population? No money in it, so no effort to make a new treatment. His company is too small for such a project. It'd have to be done by one of the industry giants, but that would only happen if there was a business climate favorable for such a thing.

He was essentially acting the highway bandit against insurance companies.

Now, while the argument is sound, I do not think in practice it would turn out the way it is intended. Most industries always shift the cost to the consumer. Most people assume this to be the patient. On surface level, it is, but most pharma companies offer discount payment programs for self-pay individuals or lack coverage through their insurance. Actual patients with the condition paid next to nothing for the drug if insurance didn't pay. The burden of the bill always falls on the healthcare workers. Doctors, pharmacists, hospitals, etc. That's the system that eats the bill, because once the service is rendered, it's not like they can take the drug back if a patient fails to pay their bill. Now sure, you could make the argument that when patients don't pay their bills, hospitals bills insurance more to cover the deficit, so insurance raises premiums. It's kind of a soft argument that's hard to attribute because there's probably a million and one more factors that go into raising premiums, but that did contribute.

Shkreli's problem is that the media was a bit disingenuous about the whole situation. Made it seem like he was some evil rich guy sticking it to innocent patients when in reality, there really was no difference in access to the drug for patients, financially speaking. It was one multibillion dollar industry playing tug-of-war with another multibillion dollar industry for their share of the margins of the pie. So he continued to act like a dick on the public sphere knowing that it was industry-standard practice, it wasn't as shady as the stories made it seem, and that it couldn't come back to him. And he was right in the sense of his recent prison sentence is for something unrelated to the price hikes of certain meds. And at that point, his infamous persona did him no favors at all.

I don't really have sympathy for the guy, but there is truth to the matter that the pitckforking is WAY out of proportion to the actual facts of the case. It shows mob mentality rules and people will turn on you for being a dick rather than for the actual details.
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Fishy posted...

His "5,000% price hike" on Daraprim affected only insurance companies, forcing them to pay the high prices while the beneficiaries still received the same treatment. Pharmacies would have to pay the full $750 per pill price, while those without insurance would get it for free or at most a dollar per pill, and hospitals would receive heavy discounts

The most confusing part of the whole saga is how his creepy defenders think "He was only ripping off the insurance companies (who set premiums depending on their expenditure, but let's not bring that up)" somehow is a defense.

I only hate him cause he purchased the wutang album
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Musourenka posted...

I know they can afford it, but what's the point of charging them to so? That money isn't going to those in need; Turing's investors are pocketing it.

All I see is, at best, a big trolling effort by Shrkeli.

He wants a climate in which insurance is less willing to cover the drug and therefore opens up an incentive for a bigger pharma company to design a new drug to treat it. He thinks Daraprim is not a very good drug. His company is too small to take on a billion dollar R&D for a drug that would treat a pool of 2,000 individuals.

Other pharma companies see a generic drug already on the market for such a rare condition that there is 0 incentive to make a new drug. When Daraprim becomes too pricey for insurance, it's a different story.

In the mean time, his company swallowed the costs to provide the drug to patients who were self-pay or whose insurance at the time didn't cover it through a patient assistance program. This is pretty common practice for most pharma companies for a variety of drugs already to begin with, so it wasn't necessarily him being nice as it is just industry-standard.
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NibeIungsnarf posted...

Fishy posted...

His "5,000% price hike" on Daraprim affected only insurance companies, forcing them to pay the high prices while the beneficiaries still received the same treatment. Pharmacies would have to pay the full $750 per pill price, while those without insurance would get it for free or at most a dollar per pill, and hospitals would receive heavy discounts

The most confusing part of the whole saga is how his creepy defenders think "He was only ripping off the insurance companies (who set premiums depending on their expenditure, but let's not bring that up)" somehow is a defense.

You're missing part of the argument. The argument is sound, I just don't think it necessarily guarantees the outcome he was shooting for. And it's a bit disingenuous because there does stand to be some profit in it if it works as well.

The whole thing is a shade of grey, but his creepy defenders and the pitchforkers are both hilariously wrong about the situation.
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KingCrabCake posted...

I only hate him cause he purchased the wutang album

Now someone else is gonna get it when they auction it off
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KingCrabCake posted...

I only hate him cause he purchased the wutang album

Hopefully we can get it released
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Bishop9800 posted...

KingCrabCake posted...

I only hate him cause he purchased the wutang album

Hopefully we can get it released

The internet might crowdfund the auction
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Good thing insurance companies don't pass on their costs.