Martin Shkreli: Chagas Disease Drug Price Raise

The man who caused an outcry after increasing the price of HIV drugs is back and he apparently wants to do the same with another drug. Shkreli recently announced that he will increase the price of the decades-old drug for a serious infectious disease, the Chagas disease, a parasitic infection known to cause lethal heart problems.

Chagas disease, which affects about 300,000 individuals in the USA, is considered as one of the neglected parasitic infections so the drug is eligible for a priority review voucher.

Martin Shkreli is adding to his title as the “most hated man in America”, with the unapologetic CEO hiking the price of yet another life-saving drug.

Mr. Shekreil says he wants to take advantage of a federal program that was created to provide incentive for companies to develop new drugs. Hepatitis C treatments can cost patients up to a staggering $80,000 for a full treatment.

According to the New York Times, Shkreli hopes to gain Food and Drug Administration approval via a second company named KaloBios to license benznidazole, which is now not approved by the agency for use in the USA but is now free for some patients via a trial program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Chagas is a disease of the poor”, said Judit Rius, the US manager and legal policy advisor for Doctors Without Borders, “so it’s not a disease where people have access if prices are high”.

It has also been reported that Mr Shkreli is the owner of the single-copy Wu-Tang Clan album.

Chagas disease is caused by the parasite “Trypanosoma cruzi” and is transmitted by the “kissing bug”. Shkreli became public villain when he raised the price of a Turing medicine, Daraprim, from $13.50 to $750. As part of the program, wining members will get vouchers that can be sold to other companies for hundreds or thousands of millions of dollars.

Shkreli plans to raise the price of benznidazole, a drug used in tropical countries to treat the deadly Chagas disease.

People are usually infected with Chagas disease by getting bit by a blood-sucking insect. Since then, Shkreli has been buying up the sales rights to other medications and similarly price jacking.

“It’s caused a lot of angst in the Chagas community”, Dr. Sheba Meymandi, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of a Chagas treatment centre at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center told the New York Times. Meanwhile, Shkreli has estimated between 3,000 and 7,000 people would require the treatment.