The internet’s villain of the month is easily Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. In August, Turing, a pharma startup that had just received its first round of financing, bought the rights to manufacture an anti-parasitic drug called Daraprim. Turing’s first act was to jack the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per tablet, inciting much justifiable outrage.

Here’s the thing though: The drug was already priced outrageously and prohibitively. Daraprim is a very old and off-patent drug—just a few years ago, when the drug was still being manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, it cost $1 per pill. When GSK sold it to CorePharma in 2010 (CorePharma was eventually bought by Impax Labs, who sold the drug to Turing), the price went up to $13.50. Which is indeed much cheaper than $750 per pill, but relative cheapness doesn’t translate to accessibility. For many patients, a $13.50 daily medication might as well cost $750.

Source: Motherboard