Old-Drug Price Hike ‘Perversion of the System,’ Biogen CEO Says - Bloomberg Business
▻http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-25/old-drug-price-hike-perversion-of-the-system-biogen-ceo-says
Turing Pharmaceuticals AG’s decision to raise the price of a decades-old drug it company acquired by 50-fold was a “perversion of the system,” said the leader of one of the U.S. largest biotechnology companies and the incoming head of the drug industry’s lobby group.
The pricing decision by Martin Shkreli, Turing’s founder and chief executive officer, “dropped down a storm on the whole industry" that drugmakers don’t deserve, Biogen Inc. Chief Executive Officer George Scangos said Friday in a telephone interview. He called the move by Turing’s CEO “arrogant” and “naïve.”
Scangos is next in line to be chairman of the pharmaceutical industry’s Washington lobbying group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which has defended drugmakers this year as they’ve come under criticism for the price of medicine.