Much of the session held by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was dominated by Martin Shkreli, the bad-boy former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals who earned notoriety by raising the price 5,000 percent for the drug Daraprim, a treatment for toxoplasmosis.
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NBC News reports that Shkreli smirked, rolled his eyes and looked away when Ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland tried to appeal to his sense of morality and reflect on his actions.
Later, Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz refused to allow Shkreli’s attorney, Ben Brafman, to speak, and then summarily dismissed Shkreli from the room altogether. Nancy Retzlaff, chief commercial officer at Turing as well as the company’s chief financial officer (CFO), defended her company’s moves. But is furor over Shkreli reaching a crescendo and obfuscating the real issue: the high cost of drugs in the USA while the rest of the developed world, the wealthiest nations, enjoy lower drug costs across the board while US residents pay for research and development?
Martin Shkreli, the former head of a pharmaceutical company that jacked up prices on an AIDS drug, appeared before Congress Thursday. You have a spotlight, you have a platform, you can use that attention to come clean, to right your wrongs and to become one of the most effective patient advocates in the country and one can make a big difference in so many people’s lives.
“I intend to follow the advice of my counsel, not yours”, Shkreli said.
The controversial former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who was once called “the most hated man in America”, tweeted at members of Congress inviting them to ask their questions via social media.
And shortly after Shkreli was excused from the hearing, he left Congress with a digital parting gift.
Shkreli is under indictment on charges he committed fraud relating a hedge fund and company he ran, not due to increasing drug prices.
Although forced to attend, Mr. Shkreli remained silent at the hearing.
Turing is not the only pharmaceuticals company to engage in massive price hikes. Last month, TMZ caught the legendary rapper out and asked him about Shkreli’s September 2015 price spike of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750. You can answer some questions.
“I know you’re smiling”, Cummings added, “but I’m very serious, sir”.
“I call this money blood money… coming out of the pockets of hard working Americans”, he said, as Mr Shkreli sat through the lecture.
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As for Valeant, documents indicate the company believed it could repeatedly raise the prices of the lifesaving heart drugs Nitropress and Isuprel without repercussions because the medicines are administered by hospitals, which are less price-sensitive than consumers.
