Meet the Pharmacy Brothers: take a cheap drug and flip it
This week all the fingers of the Internet came together to form a fist, pointed squarely at the jaws of injustice.
Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and future James Bond villain, bought the rights to the drug Daraprim, which is used to treat patients with compromised immune systems.
No, you just can't stay in as nice a hotel in Ibiza and we all know it buddy.- Ashley Botting
He jacked the price from $13.50 to $750 — a modest increase of 5,000 per cent.
After facing huge online backlash, he conceded, saying he will drop the price. He didn't specify by how much.
Shkreli told The Guardian, "We might have to curtail research for several lethal diseases that we are seeking treatments for. We might have to fire people."
Is this story worth our rage?
"I'm really tired of the pharma people saying we have to charge $9-million for that pill because we had to do two or three days of research. We had to kill a number of rats and some bunnies and that don't come cheap," raged comedian Mary Walsh.
"He's playing the martyr, he's like, 'Now I can't help the dying," said Ashley Botting moaned. "No, you just can't stay in as nice a hotel in Ibiza and we all know it, buddy."
Because News host Gavin Crawford wondered if the huge price hike was actually a good thing for the public.
"Is it a case where there was a hole in the fence and it was okay if you brought one or two friends through and this guy was like, 'I'm going to bring 50 people into the drive-in for free,' and all the pharma companies were like 'Dude, you're blowing it for everybody!'?"
Anand Rajaram thought he might have actually benefited from the bad publicity — by getting his name into the news.
"What he's doing is playing the Trump game. He's getting media attention for nonsense," he said.
Introducing the Pharmacy Brothers
Inspired by this story, CBC has launched a new lifestyle show, The Pharmacy Brothers.* Because News got an exclusive sneak peek.
What do you think? Is this story #rageworthy? Take our poll.
*The CBC actually hasn't launched this show. We just made it up.