Wednesday, December 07, 2016

Oz boys make expensive HIV drug for a dime

A group of Australian schoolchildren working on a shoestring budget have recreated the HIV drug whose price was controversially jacked up 5000% by a former hedge fund manager.
US company Turing Pharmaceuticals' former chief Martin Shkreli became a global figure of hate after buying the rights to Daraprim and then raising the price in the US from $13.50 a tablet to $750.
Youngsters at a Sydney school decided to draw attention to the scandal and went to work creating pyrimethamine, the active ingredient for Daraprim, an anti-parasitic used to treat people with low immunity , such as those with HIV , chemotherapy patients and pregnant women.
Student James Wood said he and his friends had started off with just $20 of the drug, and in one reaction had produced thousands of dollars' worth. “So we really just hope this makes a point about the nature of the pharmaceutical industry ,“ he told the `Sydney Morning Herald'.University of Sydney research chemist Alice Williamson helped the boys synthesise the medicine using an online platform Open Source Malaria. The pupils “shared the outrage of the general public“, she said.

Turing Pharmaceuticals continues to sell the only FDA-approved form of the drug in the US, but reportedly cut the price in half for hospitals after the outcry . Daraprim, which figures on the WHO list of essential medicines, is cheap in most countries, with 50 tablets selling in Australia for $10.

Source: Times of India-3rd-December-2016
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31804&articlexml=Oz-boys-make-expensive-HIV-drug-for-a-03122016019017