HRC President Calls on Drug Maker to Roll Back Price Hike

Move by Martin Shkreli reeks of greed, puts at risk pregnant women and people living with HIV

WASHINGTON - Human Rights Campaign (HRC) President Chad Griffin today issued an open letter to Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli, calling on him to rescind his outrageous 5000 percent price increase for Daraprim, a drug used to treat people with compromised immune systems, including those living with HIV.

In his letter, which can be read in full here, Griffin, head of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, excoriates Turing for price gouging, and asserts that HRC will “pursue every avenue” to hold the company and Shkreli to account.

“Your greed in raising the single-pill price from less than $15 to more than $750 is unconscionable,” Griffin writes. “It immediately puts at risk scores of medically vulnerable people, including those living with HIV, and women who are pregnant. Medical organizations have estimated that this predatory move could increase the average cost per year for an adult patient reliant on the drug to more than $630,000.”

“Your action is an appallingly egregious example of deep, damaging problems in our nation’s drug pricing system--a problem we will continue to urge our nation’s elected officials to tackle with vigor and care. Instead of taking advantage of our system to turn a profit, I call on you to restore fair pricing for Daraprim.”

A full version of the letter can be read here.

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. HRC envisions a world where LGBT people are embraced as full members of society at home, at work and in every community.

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