Guest *Ste***cque** Report post Posted September 23, 2015 The CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals has purchased a drug and turns around and increases the price 5000% to his customers. The drug was 60 years old and apparently the only reason he jacked the price was profit. He tried spinning some bs and finally admitted he did it because he could. This guy looks like a sociopath and his personality, or lack of one, seems to back that assessment up. Prior to this he was a hedge fund manager and was fired from his last job and is being sued by the board of that company for millions. A real peach! He gives capitalists a bad name. FYI, his last name was Shkreli. As far as I know, no relation to Stephen Harper.:) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
slacker 1290 Report post Posted September 23, 2015 Even I wouldn't try to pin this travesty to Harper :) I'm not entirely sure what's happening with this. I mean, if he'd jacked up the price by even 100%, probably no one would even have noticed. That's just the way the pharmaceutical market works. But when the price of a pill goes from $13 to $750, EVERYONE notices. My internet-indoctrinated mind thought he must be a troll of some sort, he can't be seriously expecting to make money on this. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MightyPen 67414 Report post Posted September 23, 2015 Along the same lines, I was reading yesterday about Stewart Parnell, the peanut company executive who was just sentenced to 28 years in jail. In 2008 he knowingly shipped peanut products contaminated with salmonella that proceeded to kill at least nine people and sicken hundreds, and resulted in the largest food recall in U.S. history. Reading the Wikipedia article about the investigation into the tainted food and the plant at which it was produced ("A... former employee told CBS News that he saw a rat dry-roasting in a peanut area"), I found this little gem: "After the company was identified as the source of the outbreak, Parnell pressed federal regulators to allow him to continue using peanuts from the tainted plant. He wrote that company executives "desperately at least need to turn the raw peanuts on our floor into money."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_Corporation_of_America It's like someone breathed life into a cartoon capitalist villain. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ice4fun 78407 Report post Posted September 23, 2015 Investing in old "under priced" drugs is in fact a trend that is happening in the pharmaceutical industry.... companies are searching out older drugs which have long ago paid back their developmental costs and are repricing them for astronomical profits. This example might be an extreme case but lots of companies are taking advantage of the fact that society is very accepting of high drug cost based on people's incorrect assumption that the companies need these high prices to cover astronomical R&D expenditures. While there might be some truth in that for the Newer designer drugs it is not the case for these older drugs... this is nothing but price gouging and for many it's who cares because it's the insurance company or the government who picks up the cost... well... unfortunately that's not true all these costs ultimately come back to the consumer. While we can't pin this one on Harper as it is a global issue the reality is government does need to step in and restrict these unrealistic price increases... so i won't blame Harper but I will suggest he is probably not likely to actually do anything about it. Just my Opinion 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Peachka 4334 Report post Posted September 23, 2015 Karma has a way coming back to bite 'people' like this guy. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mikeyboy 27133 Report post Posted September 24, 2015 Douchebag indeed. Can't think of a better word. Additional Comments: "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all." -possibly attributed to Keynes but source unknown. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
slacker 1290 Report post Posted September 24, 2015 Karma has a way coming back to bite 'people' like this guy. http://deadstate.org/hackers-just-released-the-home-address-and-phone-number-of-price-gouging-pharma-ceo-martin-shkreli/ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
