Former hedge funder purchases rights to AIDS pill, raises price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: A former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli has purchased the rights to a 62-year-old drug used for treating AIDS patients and raised the price overnight from $13.50 per tablet to $750.

Shkreli, 32, now founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals has been facing major backlash on social media, ever since the announcement was made.

According to the New York Times, Shkreli purchased the rights to Daraprim for $55 million on the same day that Turing announced it had raised $90 million from Shkreli and other investors in its first round of financing.

The New York Times further reported that Alberg's group and the Infectious Diseases Society of America wrote in a joint letter to Turing earlier this month complaining that the price increase is  “unjustifiable for the medically vulnerable patient population” and “unsustainable for the health care system.”

Daraprim, used for treating toxoplasmosis — an opportunistic parasitic infection that can cause grave or even life-threatening problems in babies and for people with compromised immune systems like AIDS patients and certain cancer patients — sold for slightly over $1 a tablet several years ago. 

According to rawstory.com, prices have increased as the rights to the drug has been passed on from one pharmaceutical company to the next, but nothing compares to the almost 5,500 percent increase since Shkreli acquired it.