synopsis of this case study under 150words Turing Pharmaceuticals Tweet from Ber

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synopsis of this case study under 150words Turing Pharmaceuticals Tweet from Bernie sariders, U.S. Senator and former democratic presidential candidatoe Introduction: In august 2015, doctors treating AIDS patients and cancer victims suffering from a rare parasitic infection that affects people with weakened immune systems suddenly found their work had gotten a lot more expensive. The U.S. price of the drug that had been used to treat such life-threatening infections for more than six decades had jumped overnight from $13.50 per dose to $750. The explanation that emerged in the weeks that followed wasn't a shortage of ingredients or a new development in the treatment formulary. Rather the drug, Daraprim, had become part of what some said was a new trend of investor speculation in drug price. Turing Pharmaceuticals, a new venture started by a former hedge fund manager with a controversial history, had purchased the only company that made the out-of-patent drug in the United States. The next day, Turing increased the price of the mdrug, Daraprim, by more than 5000 percent. Doctors, patients and politicians charged "price-gouging As the story became a media sensation, Turing's 32-year-old founder and CEO Martin Shkreli said the company planned to use the profits to try to develop better treatments for the infection the drug treats, toxoplasmosis. "ultimately," he said on televised interviews, "I'm a capitalist. I'm trying to create a big drug company, a successful drug company, a profitable drug company." Overnight Shkreli rose from obscurity to become the poster child for everything that was perceived to be wrong with the pharmaceutical industry's pricing scheme in the lightly regulated U.S. market. As the charges of price gouging burst onto the political forefront, biotech company stock prices plummeted by nearly 25percent. Social media discussion of the topic exploded, with Twitter posters calling Shkreli "pharma jerk", and "a morally bankrupt sociopath. The BBC pondered whether Shlreli was "the most hated man in America." And American presidential candidate Hillary Clinton laid out new proposals to limited profits made by the entire drug industry The profit of the world's pharmaceutical industry were heavily dependent upon the U.S. market which spend far more than other countries, accounting for 40 percent of global pharmaceutical sales. However, similar price debates were starting to affect even those countries where governments controlled drug pricing - especially as health systems decided whether to allow patients to access new, high-tech treatments that can be incredibly expensive. Turing was far from the only drug company to raise prices in the U.S. in recent years. Studies showed that one out of five of the most used generic drugs increased in price by more than 50 percent in 2013, while brand-name drug prices jumped more than eight times the general inflation rate. But Turing's actions fixed public attention on drug prices and raised the issue of whether the pharmaceutical industry should be able to profit on the plight of theill. Questioning Drug Profits Though they are developed by private companies, pharmaceutical cures serve a public good, improving health and preventing needless deaths. In essence, drug companies are given government patents that allow them to charge high prices for their drugs for a number of years in exchange for undertaking the expensive and risky business of

Explanation / Answer

The article is about unethical and unsrupulous practice by a section of pharmaceutical companies of acquiring old drugs which are no longer under patent at dirt cheap prices and then raise it prices absurdly to as high as 8000 percent in some cases. This is often accompanied by closure of all research and development activities and killng the competition so that there is no substitutes of that drug and an enormous amount of profits can be earned in a small duration. The promoters of such companies brazenly advocate for profits for shareholders on expense of sufferings of poor patients who are not insured, and can no longer afford the obscenely expensive medication. One cause of this "price at will" tactics of the companies is insufficient and ineffective regulations by the controlling authorities. Experts see it as a dangerous trend that has to be brought under conrol, if the essential medicines are to be made available to every patient and innovation is to prevail so that challenges before the medical and pharmaceutical sciences are resolved, and not to be looked at with open mouth and hopelessness.

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