(February 22, 2016 at 8:20 pm)Mermaid Wrote:(February 22, 2016 at 8:15 pm)Exian Wrote: Perhaps it was cheaper to buy the name rather than come up with a generic equal? Perhaps that it was a dormant drug in low demand for so long, acted as a sort of entrance barrier assuring Turing that, even though it wasn't under patent, they could effectively have the monopoly. Even now, nothing is stopping another company from coming up with the generic version and forcing the prices down. Although, Shkreli said they knew going in that they would lose money... hmm.
That's the missing piece. Why would he invest in a drug that doesn't make any money?
I've been thinking about that. It could be one or more of the following and then some:
-He's really young, and in the Vice interview, he seemed surprisingly naive. Maybe someone with interest advised him to buy it, or maybe he made the decision without any advice at all. He seems arrogant enough either way.
-He really does want to help people, as he states repeatedly in the interview, and he thought he got his numbers right when he crunched them for insured people (and maybe he did), offered them for free for whomever isn't insured, and upped the premium for the major corporations so they'd have to bed the cost. He obviously could be lying about this stuff, but if he's not, it kinda goes back to the possibly arrogant naivete.
I think he's found himself between a rock and a hard place: either he loses tons of money by giving in to this fiasco, or he sticks to his guns and convinces the general public he's not some shyster. I'm kind of rooting for him that he can do the latter and start a revolution to better the pharma industry, because if he's telling the truth and really only trying to do good by people, he's on that path.
(I do think he's a total ass, though. Seriously: who acts that way?)
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
