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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this fact-check misspelled Martin Shkreli's name.
"Daraprim is still underpriced, relative to its peers."
- Martin Shkreli on Monday, September 21st, 2015 in comments on Bloomberg TV
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THE RULING: FALSE
The CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the company that jacked up the cost of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 essentially overnight, says the new price tag is still below market value.
Mark Shkreli, a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, was singled out as the man behind Turing's controversial decision. So Shkreli took to the airwaves to defend himself, insisting that the price hike was altruistic or, at the very least, not unique.
"You only need less than 100 pills so at the end of the day, the price for treatment - to save your life - was only $1,000," Shkreli told Bloomberg TV on Sept. 21, 2015. "These days, in modern pharmaceuticals, cancer drugs can cost $100,000 or more, rare disease drugs can cost half a million dollars. Daraprim is still underpriced, relative to its peers."
Daraprim is used to treat a parasitic infection known as toxoplasmosis, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers a leading cause of death attributed to food-borne illnesses. The Toxoplasma parasite can be transmitted through contaminated food, water, and kitchen utensils as well as contact with infected cat feces. While 60 million Americans carry the parasite with no symptoms, it can become deadly for those with weakened immune systems.
We were curious about Shkreli's claim that Daraprim's new price was comparable to "its peers." (Shkreli has since said that he would lower the price amid the outrage, but he did not reveal the new price.)
Neither Shkreli nor Turing Pharmaceuticals got back to us for this fact-check, but we found that while other treatments are certainly expensive, Shkreli is committing a false equivalence when he compares them to Daraprim.
Shkreli is right that...