New York AG probes drug maker accused of gouging patients

Today, at the urging of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the New York attorney general has begun investigating whether Turing Pharmaceuticals, which recently imposed an unconscionable 5,000 percent price hike on the life-saving drug Daraprim, may have violated antitrust laws by limiting its distribution.

The drug’s main use is to treat life-threatening parasitic infections but it is also needed by a few infants and patients with AIDS. So we called Shkreli up to learn a little more about what the company’s been up to since they came under fire for jacking up their drug price from $13.50 to $750.

“While competition might ordinarily be expected to deter such a massive price increase, it appears that Turing may have taken steps to prevent that competition from arising”, said the letter, a copy of which first reported by The New York Times.

Yes it is absolutely a reaction – there were mistakes made with respect to helping people understand why we took this action, I think that it makes sense to lower the price in response to the anger that was felt by people. Shkreli told Business Insider. “We have to find a safe price to lower it to”.

Once word got out, Shkreli found himself under huge pressure from the public to drop the price on the 65-year-old drug.

Generic drugs typically force companies to keep prices low.

Shkreli did have one fair point: His company isn’t the only pharmaceutical company to raise prices on older drugs.