On Wednesday, US News & World Report reported the committee requested documents and information from Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and two other drug-makers already under investigation for hiking drug prices, Retrophin Inc. of San Diego and Rodelis Therapeutics of Alpharetta, Georgia.
The Senators want a face-to-face meeting with Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, “as soon as it is practicable.” Shkreli is the former hedge fund manager who founded Turing Pharmaceuticals. Digital Journal reported in September that Shkreli bought the rights to Daraprim for $55 million in August this year, on the same day that Turing Pharmaceuticals announced it had raised $90 million in the start-up’s first round of financing.
Shkreli is now the poster boy for drug company price-gouging, and he apparently has earned the title. After acquiring Daraprim, the only U.S.-approved treatment for toxoplasmosis, a deadly parasitic infection that can affect pregnant women and patients with HIV, he promptly raised the price 5,000 percent.
In an email statement to US News, Shkreli said: “We are reviewing the committee’s request and, as we have and continue to do with similar congressional inquiries, we look forward to having an open and honest dialogue about drug pricing.”
Democrats in the House of Representatives want to go further than just asking the Turing CEO nicely for documents. They want the Republicans to summon the Turing and Valeant CEOs to a congressional hearing and issue subpoenas to collect documents from their companies. Both companies have refused to turn over documents to the Democrat’s House Oversight Committee.
Valeant and Turing are both playing dirty pool, it seems. Valeant is already under investigation by a number of members of Congress for its business practices, which involves buying up smaller drug companies and jacking up the prices of the drugs. Additionally, both Turing and Valeant have received multiple subpoenas from federal prosecutors seeking information on their drug pricing along with other information.
Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the Senate aging committee, said, “We need to get to the bottom of why we’re seeing huge spikes in drug prices that seemingly have no relationship to research and development costs.” She added that some of the increases resemble “little more than price gouging.”
Letters were also sent to Retrophin Inc. and Rodelis Therapeutics on Wednesday. Retrophin is being questioned on the price hike of the kidney drug, Thiola, from $1.50 per tablet to $30 per tablet. The committee wants to know why Rodelis raised the price of a tuberculosis drug by more than 2,000 percent to $10,800 per bottle.
