AIDS medicine spikes in price under new ownership

Martin Shkreli, who owns Turing Pharmaceuticals, may have just become one of the most despised people in LGBT community. Forget Kim Davis and Chick-fil-A, because Martin is messing with our health.

Martin’s company bought the rights to Daraprim and immediately hiked the price more than 5,000 percent, The New York Times reported on Monday. Daraprim is considered part of the standard treatment for toxoplasmosis, a potentially life-threatening parasitic infection. It is also used to treat people with compromised immune systems, like AIDS patients.

The price of Daraprim, which costs roughly a dollar to make, went from $13.50 a tablet to $750 overnight.

“Well, we needed to turn a profit on this drug,” Martin explained to the Bloomberg. He continued by stating companies before him were practically giving away the pills. “The price that they were pricing it at, $13.50, you only needed less than 100 pills, so at the end of the day the price per course of treatment — to save your life — was only $1,000.”

His reasoning is that by raising the price, Turing can put money into developing newer, better drugs for toxoplasmosis. That patient’s “deserve” a better drug. But at what cost?

For someone who wants to help a community of people, Martin seems to be playing something of a wicked game. He’s been fighting with critics over Twitter and even posted Eminem lyrics when the media got wind of the price surge.

“And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me/So I point one back at em, but not the index or pinkie,” he tweeted.

http://t.co/co6Fmwk3XX And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me So I point one back at em, but not the index or pinkie

— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) September 21, 2015

He continues to stand by Turing’s decision.

“Turing is a very small company, it’s a new company, and we’re not a profitable company. So for us to try to exist and maintain a profit I think is pretty reasonable,” he told CNBC on Monday. “I think profits are a great thing to stay in your corporate existence.”

Martin has stopped talking to the press about the subject, tweeting that he is doing his final interview on ABC Nightly News before switching his Twitter to private.