For those of you who need a quick refresher, Martin Shkreli is the 32-year-old pharmaceutical CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who raised the price of a drug called Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 in one day. The drug itself is used to treat parasitic infections called “toxoplasmosis” which can be found in babies, pregnant women and certain AIDS/cancer patients and has been available for 62 years, but fuck helping the human race when there’s a profit to be made, amirite? I’m not? Oh. Looks like I’m just as bad as Shkreli then (which should come as a shock to no one).
While the Internet managed to wreak havoc all over Shkreli upon finding out of his douchebaggery by forcing him to back down and return the price of Daraprim back to $13.50, it looks like his change of heart hasn’t really helped Turing Pharmaceuticals’ financials in the long run. According to Metro,
It [Turing Pharmaceuticals] reported a net loss of $14.6million (£9.6million) from July to September this year – making its net loss for the year $27.7million (£18.1million).
… Global criticism, including a tweet from Hillary Clinton, forced Shkreli to backtrack a bit on the decision and lower the price to something ‘more affordable’.
His reasoning for the price hike was that they would spend the extra money on research and development, and that’s also what the company claims is the reason for the financial losses.
Eh ehhh, if I lost $27.7 million dollars in a year I’d make up excuses for it too. “Oh well I accidentally dropped a lit match inside a can of gasoline which just happened to also be inside the vault we keep our money, total clutz move on my part LOL.” And while Turing Pharmaceuticals may be shitting the bed lately, that doesn’t mean Shkreli is any worse for wear – Metro reports that he just became the majority shareholder of biomedical company KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, causing the company’s share prices to increase “more than seven-fold almost immediately afterwards.”
In other words: karma does not exist.
[H/T Metro]
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