In charges announced Monday, the agency says
Vyera Pharmaceuticals - formerly Turing Pharma - used deals with distributors
to prevent generic companies from obtaining samples and sales data for
Daraprim. Vyera called the charges meritless.
By ALARIC DEARMENT /
Jan 28, 2020 at 8:05 AM
“Pharma
Bro” Martin Shkreli and the company he once led were sued Monday over
allegations that they deliberately sought to prevent generic competition to a
drug whose list price skyrocketed and that became a poster child for high drug
prices.
The
Federal Trade Commission said Monday that it and New York’s
state attorney general had filed charges against Vyera Pharmaceuticals – which
operated under the name Turing Pharmaceuticals until 2017 – concerning the
toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim (pyrimethamine). Shkreli and
Turing became notorious in 2015 when the company increased the list price of
Daraprim from less than $20 to more than $700 per tablet, despite the fact that
it had been on the market for several decades. The drug is considered a
standard of care for toxoplasmosis, a potentially fatal protozoan brain
infection that affects patients with HIV/AIDS, cancers and who are receiving
organ transplants.
The
charges filed Monday allege that, anticipating that the price increase would
invite generic competition, formed distribution agreements that would prevent
generic drugmakers from obtaining the samples they would need to develop them,
while also preventing them from obtaining ingredients. The deals, signed with
distributors, also prevented them from selling sales data, which generic
drugmakers use to determine the viability of developing a drug.
In a
statement, Vyera said the allegations were “without merit”
and not supported by the facts and that it would defend itself in court.
“Daraprim
is a lifesaving drug for vulnerable patients,” said FTC Bureau of Competition
Deputy Director Gail Levine, in a statement. “Vyera kept the price of Daraprim
astronomically high by illegally boxing out the competition.”
Shkreli
was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in August 2017 after bilking investors
out of $10 million and sentenced in 2018 to seven years in prison in connection
with another one of his companies, Retrophin. But that didn’t stop him from
trying to stay in the pharmaceutical business. In March of last year, The Wall
Street Journal reported that he had been using a contraband cell phone to run a
new drug company, Phoenixus, out of prison, in violation of prison regulations.
Forbes reported that Shkreli had been placed in
solitary confinement following the Wall Street Journal report.
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