WASHINGTON – Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin today issued an open letter to Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, calling on him to rescind his outrageous 5,000 percent price increase for Daraprim, a drug used to treat people with compromised immune systems, including those living with HIV.
The drug, called Daraprim, was acquired in August by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager. Turing immediately raised the price to $750 a tablet from $13.50, bringing the annual cost of treatment for some patients to hundreds of thousands of dollars, reports The New York Times.
In his letter, which can be read in full here, Griffin, head of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, excoriates Turing for price gouging, and asserts that HRC will “pursue every avenue” to hold the company and Shkreli to account.
“Your greed in raising the single-pill price from less than $15 to more than $750 is unconscionable,” Griffin writes. “It immediately puts at risk scores of medically vulnerable people, including those living with HIV, and women who are pregnant. Medical organizations have estimated that this predatory move could increase the average cost per year for an adult patient reliant on the drug to more than $630,000.”
“Your action is an appallingly egregious example of deep, damaging problems in our nation’s drug pricing system–a problem we will continue to urge our nation’s elected officials to tackle with vigor and care. Instead of taking advantage of our system to turn a profit, I call on you to restore fair pricing for Daraprim.”
