A key Democrat wants the House to look into a former hedge fund manager’s brazen price hike of a life-saving drug.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., wrote on Tuesday to the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, about the drug Daraprim. The price for the decades-old drug, which treats a dangerous parasitic infection, increased from $13.50 to $750 per pill “overnight,” Cummings wrote.
The reason was Martin Shkreli, a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, whose company bought the rights to Daraprim, Cummings said.
Since the purchase and price hike, Shkreli has defiantly refused to adjust the price. He called a Washington Post reporter a “moron” for bringing the issue up. He also said that “profits are a great thing,” according to a report in Newsweek.
Shkreli told CBS he would reinvest the profits to create a better version of the drug, but Cummings cited doctors who said that a better version of the drug isn’t needed.
Cummings asked Chaffetz to hold a hearing on the problem. He said that Chaffetz agreed to have high drug prices as a committee priority this year but so far has held no hearings or requested any documents on the issue.
Cummings, the committee’s ranking member, has been investigating high drug prices for more than a year.
