Doctors are outraged after Turing Pharmaceuticals increased the cost of the drug Daraprim from $13.50 a tablet to $750 overnight, The New York Times reported.
Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug, is used by infectious disease specialists to treat life-threatening parasitic infections.
Dr. Judith Aberg, the chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told the news outlet that the increase may mean the use of " alternative therapies that may not have the same efficacy.”
Turing Pharmaceuticals, a start-up run by a former hedge fund manager, acquired the drug in August.
They say the price increase is a matter of business.
"This isn’t the greedy drug company trying to gouge patients, it is us trying to stay in business,” Martin Shkreli, the founder and chief executive of Turing, told the Times. "It really doesn’t make sense to get any criticism for this.”
In an unexpected turn of events, several days after the story was published, Turing decided to roll back the price of the drug, according to Reuters. It was not immediately clear what the new price would be.
