Australian high school students have developed a drug to treat malaria and HIV for just $20.

The year 11 students at Sydney Grammar developed anti-parasitic drug daraprim to take on controversial U.S. pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli, who last year multiplied by 55 the price of the essential medicine.

The school in Sydney's east, which counts Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as a former student, created 3.7 grams of the active ingredient for just $US20.

Year 11 Sydney Grammar students (pictured) spent a year developing the active ingredient in daraprim for $US20

Former Turing Pharmaceuticals boss Martin Shkreli (pictured) acquired the right to daraprim in August 2015 and hiked the price dramatically

Martin Shkreli's greed deprived malaria and HIV sufferers of an affordable medicine

Student Milan Leonard, 17, described the moment he and his classmates created the drug in the school laboratory to highlight the 'ridiculous' inflated price of the medicine overseas.

'It was ecstatic, it was bliss, it was euphoric,' he told the ABC.

'After all of this time spent working and chemistry being such a high and low, after all the lows, after all the downs, being able to make this drug, it was pure bliss.'

The students spent a year on their breakthrough after Mr Shkreli, as the chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired the exclusive rights to daraprim and hiked the price of a tablet by 55 times, from $13.50 to $US750, in August 2015.

Students at Sydney Grammar wanted to take on Martin Shkreli for massive price gouging

Pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli tweeted he wanted the rights to an HIV cure

Individual tablets of the medicine to treat malaria and HIV soared to $US750

Sydney Grammar students have wheeled out a drug to take on this man's greed

HOW THEY DID IT The Sydney Grammar students took 17 grams of 2,4-chlorophenyl acetonitrile to create 3.7 grams of pyrimethamine, the active ingredient in daraprim. They synthesised the raw material to make the drug used to treat malaria and HIV. The students then tested its purity using a spectrograph. Their sample would be worth up to $US110,000 on the American market but they did it all for $US20 over a year. Advertisement

The 3.7 grams the Sydney Grammar students developed would sell in the United States for between $US35,000 and $US110,000.

They developed pyrimethamine, the active ingredient in daraprim which is used to treat malaria and people with weak immune systems, such as HIV sufferers, pregnant women and chemotherapy patients.

The World Health Organisation lists pyrimethamine as an essential medicine.

Mr Shkreli last week tweeted his fantasy about wanting the rights to an HIV cure.