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RE: CLIP | NYT: Turing Commits to Modest Price Reduction on a Drug

No. But you all should discuss on tomorrow’s 8 am call. * I’m a little nervous that we ran the spot and this dude is still sticking it to patients. Has there been any further discussion about this? * Turing Commits to Modest Price Reduction on a Drug <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/business/turing-commits-to-modest-price-reduction-on-a-drug.html?_r=0> By ANDREW POLLACKNOV. 3, 2015 Turing Pharmaceuticals, which ignited a firestorm by acquiring a 62-year-old drug and increasing its price fiftyfold overnight, said on Tuesday that it would lower the price somewhat by the end of the year and take steps to broaden financial support to patients. But the company, in a meeting on Tuesday in Washington with some of its critics, did not say how much the price would be lowered. In an interview with an H.I.V. activist this week, however, Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager who founded and runs Turing, said the reduction would be on the order of 10 percent, an amount not likely to mollify many people. “Since acquiring Daraprim three months ago, our top priority has been to ensure that patients who need Daraprim have ready, affordable access to it,” the company said in a letter given to the groups it met with on Tuesday. Sean Dickson, a member of one of the groups, said in an interview after the meeting that he welcomed the company’s intention to fix the problems caused by the price increase but said the group was dissatisfied with the lack of specifics. “We don’t have any concrete understanding of the revised price or changes to patient assistance programs,” said Mr. Dickson, who is manager for health care access at the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors. Daraprim, which won regulatory approval in 1953, is the main drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that can cause serious neurological and other problems in babies, people with AIDS and others with compromised immune systems. Turing, a start-up based in New York, paid $55 million to acquire Daraprim and raised the price from $13.50 a tablet to $750. When the move came to light in mid-September, it stoked outrage about drug prices and made Mr. Shkreli, 32, an object of scorn. Within days, he said he would lower the price, but did not say when or by how much. Mr. Shkreli has argued that Daraprim is still underpriced compared to modern drugs that treat serious diseases and that Turing will use the money from the higher price to develop better drugs for toxoplasmosis. Even at the higher price, he has said, the drug will not be a burden on health care spending because it is so rarely used. He has also said that many of the pills are sold for a penny apiece under federally mandated discount programs and that patients never go without the drug for financial reasons. But some doctors say the higher price has made it difficult for them to obtain the drug. National guidelines for treating toxoplasmosis in people with AIDS were revised last month to suggest other options when Daraprim, known generically as pyrimethamine, was not available. Dr. Rebecca Zadroga, an infectious-disease specialist at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, said she had to choose a different, possibly less effective therapy aimed at making sure the infection did not flare up again in a young man recently treated for toxoplasmosis in his brain. “I’m in a holding pattern with a third-line drug hoping it works and he doesn’t have further problems,” Dr. Zadroga said, adding that the man was only now regaining the ability to walk and would have to remain on the maintenance therapy for months When the price had not been reduced a month after Mr. Shkreli’s promise, more than 150 organizations sent Turing an open letter urging it to rescind the price increase and to broaden patient access programs. Representatives of several of those groups, including the HIV Medicine Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Treatment Action Group, met with Mr. Shkreli and other Turing executives on Tuesday. The Turing executives handed them a letter in response to the open letter. Among other points, it said the company’s patient assistance program would be expanded to offer Daraprim free to people with incomes up to 500 percent of the federal poverty level. A program from a former owner of the drug covered people with incomes up to only 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Mr. Shkreli declined a request for comment about the meeting. He was more forthcoming in an interview with Josh Robbins, an H.I.V. activist and blogger. In that interview, posted on Monday, Mr. Shkreli said he would most likely lower the price a “modest” amount, perhaps 10 percent, maybe by Thanksgiving and definitely by Christmas. He said that the issue was not so much the list price, since patients typically do not pay that, but rather the cost to hospitals of stocking the drug. Those hospitals not eligible for the discounted penny-per-pill price had to pay up to $75,000 for a bottle of 100, even though most hospitals see no cases of toxoplasmosis in any given year. “Why the heck should they buy a $75,000 bottle from us and sit there and watch it collect dust?” Mr. Shkreli said. He said that while he expected big hospitals to pay the full price, Turing would offer substantial discounts, perhaps 25 to 50 percent, to smaller hospitals. He also said Turing would come out with a smaller bottle, with perhaps 30 pills, to lower the cost of stocking the drug. This email is intended only for the named addressee. It may contain information that is confidential/private, legally privileged, or copyright-protected, and you should handle it accordingly. 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