The Controversial Price Hike of Daraprim and the Epipen

Nolan Cope

Professor Scott Keim

English 105

18 April 2017

The Controversial Price Hike of Daraprim and the Epipen

In August of 2015 a pharmaceutical company by the name of Turing bought the rights of a drug called Daraprim, which is commonly used to prevent toxoplasmosis infection in people with HIV infection (Lorenzetti). Immediately upon purchasing the rights to Daraprim, Turing raised the price of the drug by nearly 5,000% overnight (Search RX). The drug went from $13.50 per pill to $750, making it nearly impossible for consumers to afford it (Polack). Martin Shrkreli, the man behind the price hike, said on record that “anyone cannot afford the medicine they would be able to contact him and get it for free.” The problem is hospitals are not able to afford to stock the drug for emergency situations (Conti). Shrekli claims that raising the price of Daraprim by $700 was completely necessary because the shareholders of Turing Pharmaceuticals expected nothing less but maximum profit, due to that fact many people are losing their lives because of the inability to obtain the medicine. Consumers may need to look for other options of medicine because the future of Daraprim does not look good as Shkreli has said he does not plan on lowering the price anytime soon and says he’s using the extra revenue for research and development only (Conti). Another important prescription drug that saw a rise in price recently was the Epipen, an emergency injection device used for people who are suffering from severe allergic reactions. The Epipen has been around for decades and has only ever cost a reasonable price of approximately $100, but when Mylan bought the rights of the Epipen the price rose to approximately $600 in just a couple of years (Smith). The drug industry is controlled by pharmaceutical CEOs who can determine prices of lifesaving drugs such as Daraprim and the Epipen. Constantly they take advantage of the high demand of their drugs and my goal in this paper is to bring the corruptions of the drug industry to light.

In the early 1980’s an epidemic began in the US that would change many people’s lives. The disease was first found in the United States in 1981 in a group of five previously healthy gay men and by the end of 1991 nearly 121 gay men were killed by this disease; people began to figure out that it was a sexually transmitted disease (Author, Website 1). In 1982 the CDC first used the term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) describing it as “a disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known case for diminished resistance to that disease” (Author,Website 3). In 1983 the disease began to affect women with sexual partners who had the disease, suggesting that the