Looks like Turing’s test was a failure.
Turing Pharmaceuticals is reneging on its promise to cut the cost of the lifesaving drug Daraprim, after buying the rights to the drug in August and raising the price fiftyfold to $750 per per pill from $13.50.
Instead, the small biotech company says it’s reducing the price for hospitals by up to 50 percent for the drug, which treats toxoplasmosis, a rare parasitic infection that mainly strikes pregnant women and HIV patients.
Turing’s CEO, the former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, made the announcement Tuesday, as company officials claimed it was more important to cut the medicine’s cost to hospitals, according to The New York Times.
“A drug’s list price is not the primary factor in determining patient affordability and access,†Nancy Retzlaff, Turing’s chief commercial officer, told the Times. “A reduction in Daraprim’s list price would not translate into a benefit to patients.â€