On Monday, Paul brought you the story of Martin Shkreli, a 32-year-old greedy Pharmaceutical CEO who used exorbitant price gouging tactics to raise the price of a life-saving medicine 5,000%–bringing the price per one tablet of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750.
The medicine is primarily used to treat parasitic infections found in babies and pregnant women, as well as AIDS and certain cancer patients.
Well, predictably, the internet went apeshit at the gall on this dude, with Hilary Clinton even taking a shot at Martin, calling his price gouging “outrageous.”
It also didn’t help that Shkreli was a pompous, holier-than-thou asshole about the whole thing, quoting Wu-Tang in a tweet that read “I am not the one to fuck with #wutang.”
The vitriol eventually took a toll of the 32-year-old ex-hedge fund manager, and he decided to cater to the people and lower the price of the drug to a reasonable level.
From Brandon’s story yesterday, Shkreli released a statement via NBC News:
“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 said, 32.
Turing Pharmaceuticals of New York bought the drug from Impax Laboratories in August for $55 million and raised the price. Shkreli said the price would return to $13.50 in a few weeks.
Props to the dude for righting a wrong, but he’s still the scum of the earth in the court of public opinion. Hence, the beautifully-crafted, albeit relentless supercut that depicts Shkreli as Dr. Evil. So perfect. So well done.