A group of high school students in Sydney, Australia is having a moment of fame after announcing they were able to synthesize Daraprim—the anti-parasitic drug that went from $13.50 to $750 a pill last year, thanks to the infamous Martin Shkreli, ex-CEO of Turing pharmaceuticals.

According to headlines, the kids “show up” and “school” Martin Shkreli with their basic chemistry prowess. Forbes even went a violent route, saying the high schoolers “punch Martin Shkreli In the face, figuratively” with their science savvy. On Twitter, there even seemed to be a sincere question of whether the kids could actually compete with Daraprim on the market.

Shkreli—who is ever-present on social media—responded simply: “… no.” And, whether we like it or not, he’s absolutely right.

This headline-grabbing chemistry project in no way embarrasses Shkreli. It doesn't break new ground in making low cost Daraprim or, sadly, make any difference whatsoever, really. In fact, it’s almost absurd to think that the reason Shkreli could ruthlessly raise the price of a life-saving drug is because competing pharmaceutical companies simply lacked the chemistry chops to make their own cheap Daraprim.

In the words of Derek Lowe, a chemist and pharmaceutical blogger over at Science:

Daraprim is not hard to make in the lab. A lot of pharmaceuticals are not hard to make in the lab. The Sydney students have not achieved some sort of breakthrough workaround—they’re following perfectly reasonable organic synthesis procedures. Any competent organic chemist should be able to go over to their hood and do the same thing, and the Sydney professors involved know this, of course, as well as anyone.

At first glance, this may seem like just another case of bad science reporting that misrepresents what the kids have actually done—which, to be clear, is a perfectly fine chemistry project (it's just not a breakthrough). This rotten coverage is actually worse, though, because it muddles what the real problem is with drug pricing in the US: regulatory tricks and greed. The problem was never chemistry.

In recent years, the Turings, Valeants, and Mylans of the pharmaceutical industry have found several creative ways to game the market and raise drug prices. In Shkreli’s case, he bought the marketing rights to Daraprim, a decades-old, off-patent drug used in a small patient population, then he created a controlled distribution system in which he could jack the price.

Daraprim, created in the early 1950s, treats parasitic infections, namely malaria and toxoplasmosis, which can be spread by cats. Daraprim is mostly used in the US for the latter, which tends to arise as a secondary infection in HIV/AIDS patients, but it can also be a problem for pregnant women and babies.

This stale, unglamorous drug is ideal for price gouging, which Shkreli knew when he bought it as the CEO and founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals (he later stepped down from the company after being indicted for fraud). With so few patients using Daraprim, there’s a small market. So, even though it’s off-patent and a competitor has the opportunity to make a generic, there wasn’t much interest in doing so before Shkreli came along.

Exploiting that lack of competition, Shkreli set up a powerful, controlled distribution system. This is a legally contested trick in which pharmaceutical companies use limited-access systems and safety protocols to thwart would-be competitors.

Limited-access distribution systems can be part of safety protocol requirements set up with the Food and Drug Administration to ensure that a drug is distributed and used safely, under controlled conditions, and by the proper professionals. But it can also prevent other pharmaceutical companies from getting their hands on samples of the drugs. Without those samples, companies can’t perform the FDA-required tests that prove that their generic drug is the same as the brand name drug.

Currently, Daraprim is only distributed through Turing directly (for inpatients) or through Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy (for outpatients).

If a company wanted to make a generic version of Daraprim, and that company could get its hands on a sample of the drug, it could make it just as easily and cheaply as those high school students. But unlike those kids, that pharmaceutical company would presumably be manufacturing on a commercial scale—not a bench top—under the proper safety and regulatory conditions needed for drug manufacturing.