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Gillian Brockell

Ever since an HIV/AIDS patient advocacy group began raising questions last week about why Turing Pharmaceuticals jacked up the price for a medication from $13.50 per pill to $750 overnight, anger against the company has been boiling over.

The medicine, Daraprim, which has been on the market for 62 years, is the standard of care for a food-borne illness called toxoplasmosis caused by a parasite that can severely affect those with compromised immune systems. Turing purchased the rights to the drug last month and almost immediately raised prices.

[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/22/turing-ceo-martin-shkreli-explains-that-4000-percent-drug-price-hike-is-altruistic-not-greedy/">Turing CEO Martin Shkreli: 4,000 percent drug price hike is ‘altruistic,’ not greedy</a>]

Alarmed consumers took to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/3lp6kr/turing_pharmaceuticals_of_new_york_raised_the">Reddit</a> to call for a boycott of the company's products (with some pointing out that it's hard to boycott a drug if you'll die without it) and calling for new laws to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future.

Judith Aberg, a spokeswoman for the HIV Medicine Association, has calculated that even patients with insurance could wind up paying $150 per pill out of pocket. “This is a tremendous increase,” she told <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2015/09/18/company-hikes-price-5000-drug-fights-complication-aids-cancer-daraprim/32563749/">USA Today</a>.

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html?_r=0">The New York Times</a> reported that Alberg's group and the Infectious Diseases Society of America wrote in a joint letter to Turing earlier this month complaining that the price increase is “unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population” and “unsustainable for the health care system.”

[<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/22/turing-ceo-martin-shkreli-says-hell-lower-cost-of-drug-previously-hiked-4000-percent-but-would-not-say-by-how-much/">Shkreli promises to lower price of drug — but would not say by how much</a>]

The news even got the attention of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who called the pricing "outrageous" and promised that she had a plan to take on the issue. Clinton is scheduled to unveil a highly anticipated drug pricing proposal Tuesday.

The tweet drew strong reaction from Wall Street, sending the Nasdaq biotech index down 4.41 percent on Monday.

[<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/22/clinton-proposing-250-monthly-cap-on-prescription-drug-costs-for-patients/">Clinton proposing $250 monthly cap on prescription drug costs for patients</a>]

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) drew Turing into an already ongoing congressional investigation into recent drug price increases, sending a letter on Monday asking for information about total gross revenue from sales of Daraprim; prices paid for all sales; the prices in foreign markets; and the identity of company officials responsible for setting the price.

“The enormous, overnight price increase for Daraprim is just the latest in a long list of skyrocketing price increases for certain critical medications,” Sanders and Cummings said. “Americans should not have to live in fear that they will die or go bankrupt because they cannot afford to take the life-saving medication they need.”

[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/a-life-sentence-for-shipping-tainted-peanuts-victims-families-say-yes/2015/09/19/e844a314-5bf1-11e5-8e9e-dce8a2a2a679_story.html">'You took my mom': Executive who shipped tainted peanuts gets 28 years. 9 died of salmonella.</a>]

Turing spokesman Craig Rothenberg has said the company will use the money from the sales to further research treatments for toxoplasmosis, which he said has long been neglected. He also said the firm had plans to invest in marketing and education tools to raise awareness of the disease — a reasonable and reasoned answer, but one that has been unsatisfactory for many.

(In an interview with <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/21/how-an-obscure-drugs-4000-price-increase-might-finally-spur-action-on-soaring-health-care-costs/">The Washington Post</a> on Monday, the company said the pill is actually $18 a tablet so the price increase is 4,100 percent. Media outlets had previously reported that the jump was more than 5,000 percent if based on an original price of $13.50.)

John Carroll, the editor of <a href="http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/why-would-martin-shkreli-hike-old-drug-price-5000-only-moron-would-ask/2015-09-20">Fierce Biotech</a>, a daily newsletter about the industry, was one of the first to ask Turing chief executive Martin Shkreli directly to explain the move. In a hot-headed Twitter exchange over the weekend, Shkreli declined to provide additional information and instead launched into a series of personal attacks against Carroll — calling him "irrelevant" and someone who doesn't "think logically.

Shkreli also took the time to respond to questions by other commentators who jumped into the conversation:

On Monday and again Tuesday morning, Shkreli made the rounds on TV news shows explaining his company's position. On "CBS This Morning," he appeared clean-shaven, with his normally unruly hair slicked back and in a suit jacket and collared shirt, and explained that the drug was unprofitable at the old price.

[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/08/15/a-10000-blood-test-yes-really/">A $10,000 blood test?!? Yes, really. You could go to another hospital in the same state and be charged $10 for the same test.</a>]

"Any company selling it would be losing money," he said. "At this price it's a reasonable profit, not excessive at all." When the reporter said that the price hike appears to be "greedy," Shkreli said his motivations are actually the opposite.

"I can see how it looks greedy but I think there's a lot of altruistic properties to it," he said, smiling. Shkreli said that's because the company is dedicated to the treatment and cure of toxoplasmosis.

"With these new profits," he explained, "we can spend all of that upside on these patients who sorely need a new drug, in my opinion."

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<a class="row-title" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/09/21/a-police-chief-found-a-clever-way-to-fight-drug-addiction-calling-out-pharma-ceos/" title="Edit “A police chief found a clever way to fight drug addiction: Calling out pharma CEOs”">Police chief finds clever way to fight drug addiction: Call out pharma CEOs</a>

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<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/09/21/how-an-obscure-drugs-4000-price-increase-might-finally-spur-action-on-soaring-health-care-costs/">How an obscure TB drug's mind-boggling price increase could finally spur action on soaring health-care costs</a>

For more health news, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter <a href="http://wapo.st/1LDkwOZ">here</a>.

Columbia University

Ariana Eunjung Cha is a national reporter. She has previously served as The Post's bureau chief in Shanghai and San Francisco, and as a correspondent in Baghdad.

Ariana Eunjung Cha

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