In the autumn of 2015, the price of one pill of Daraprim, a decades-old drug used to treat a parasitic infection that threatens people with weakened immune systems, rose from about $13.50 to $750. No new formulation and no shortage. A small company had bought the U.S. rights, and its chief executive decided the market would bear it.
That man was Martin Shkreli, then the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, and Mark Cuban says the episode is part of the reason his pharmacy exists. Cuban has spent years attacking America's drug pricing system, and Cost Plus Drugs, the online pharmacy that carries his name, sells generic medications at acquisition cost plus a fixed markup. Asked where the idea came from, Cuban went back to that pill.
