Martin Shkreli (2015)
Martin Shkreli is an American-Albanian hedge fund manager, specializing in healthcare, and is the founder of MSMB Capital Management, a multi-strategy hedge fund. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Retrophin LLC, a biotechnology firm founded in 2011.
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About the Martin Shkreli Interview
My short bio: CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
My Proof: twitter.com/martinshkreli is referring to this AMA
Martin Shkreli Oct 24, 2015
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not much lol what's up with you
PixelDirigible
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lol
Martin Shkreli
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How have you and your public relations team dealt with the recent controversy?
Empigee
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poorly
Martin Shkreli
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/u/martinshkreli when asked earlier if you were using sock puppets or other means to artificially inflate your presence in this thread you said "of course not". However there are a large number of accounts created within the last few hours that have only participated in this thread and have lobbed softball questions for you to answer. Any comment?
Accounts such as:
/u/adamaxr
/u/bunchafuckwits
/u/confound2000
/u/cottonpicker2
/u/dankprofessor
/u/faboreno
/u/GjonDemiri
/u/HopeForPa
/u/LoyalFollower
/u/LucySnowwhite
/u/MergerArbitrage
/u/michelle34
/u/misnomerful
/u/mjuhl1994
/u/Neelny
/u/newbietothiss
/u/NicoEnea
/u/papaoaaoaia
/u/patientvalue101
/u/rayofsun0777
/u/Serene-Silence
/u/Shkrelidelic
/u/Sweetass823
/u/TheMatSnow
/u/wt05
/u/Zyneterin
TestingYourPremise
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Is it possible that they were not reddit users and had an interest in participating in the discussion? i recognize some of these users from other websites (twitter, offtopic)
Martin Shkreli
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have you considered that maybe people hate you because of your controversial stance on updog?
PixelDirigible
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its possible
Martin Shkreli
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So I understand your take and am wary of the rhetorical response from much of the left, including the top 2 Dem candidates, but there are unique free market impracticalities to the drug industry. They often operate in virtual monopolies where life or quality of life is at stake, and a collective pays by government mandate for the product via Medicare or mandated health insurance. Simply reasoning that increasing the price of a product by 5000% to fund future drug development ignores that using that justification could mean one could charge a near infinite price for their drug. The end user doesn't individually pay for it, nor does the doctor prescribing or administering it, so normal free market supply and demand price discovery does not apply.
Broader issue is that without price controls as medicine discovers more drugs to treat patients for what ails them and the inflation rate for healthcare vastly exceeds the overall inflation rate, a cost bubble becomes non sustainable. It's an extension the so-called "death panels" debate that raged when Obamacare was enacted, where obscene amounts of end of life care money could be spent to slightly improve and/or extend life, treating everyone for everything they suffer from no matter the costs eventually doesn't work.
What say you about my reservations?
OffTheLows
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I've had some time to read this. What stops an "infinite" price, which is a very intelligent and logical observation, is the mechanisms you see working right now. The trend appears to be extending to infinity, and the reaction we've seen to what our company did is a part of the corrective mechanism that exists. Outrage turns into laws and the system is theoretically improved. So I'm not I have any reservations.
Martin Shkreli
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Thoughts on $AMDA? Was thinking about taking a loan out on my house to go all in.
BTW, you should join us over in /r/wallstreetbets
Theriley106
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im looking at it
Martin Shkreli
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If you could go back in time to the day before you announced the price increase, what would you do differently going forward, if anything?
joeevans1000
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Explain it more carefully instead of being a flippant jackass.
Martin Shkreli
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What's your stance on animal testing?
Glutsen
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it is tremendously sad but necessary. the FDA makes us do toxicology experiments on rats, dogs and monkeys. in some ways it makes sense and sometimes it does not.
Martin Shkreli
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Would you be interested in filming a documentary about your company?
RaveRacerN64
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Sure.
Martin Shkreli
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What drugs have you actually invented gotten FDA approval for vs bought from someone else?
confound2000
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none yet. most people are lucky to ever get one. i invented my first drug a few years ago and hopefully it will get approved in a few years.
Martin Shkreli
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Earlier you tweeted that you are looking to the possibility of developing a vaccine for taxoplasmosis. Why not spend the $55 million on that instead of Daraprim?
faboreno
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It would be very risky but now Daraprim provides a recurring revenue stream to focus on this illness.
Martin Shkreli
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Why are you a fuckboi?
DrJrod
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No, you.
Martin Shkreli
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Ah. And I guess it seems no one else was making a notable effort to develop another drug for this disease?
confound2000
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correct
Martin Shkreli
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What are the most exciting topics in drug development that are likely to come good in the next 5-10 years?
ButlerFish
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probably genetic manipulation
Martin Shkreli
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How did you get an internship at Cramer, Berkowitz, & Co at 17?
chockey66
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begging
Martin Shkreli
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If you never got a drug approved by FDA, then why are you the appropriate person to raise prices supposedly to spend on R&D? Shouldn't one first demonstrate they have what it takes?
confound2000
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great question. we own the only drug for toxoplasmosis and i am uncomfortable that people have to rely on a 70 year old drug for an infectious disease. so with this new price we can (barely) afford to make an upgrade.
Martin Shkreli
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How are you holding up? A lot of people read a little snippet and got furiously butt hurt at you because of click bait headlines.
Whats the real story we didn't read?
who_am_I_today_hmm
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Our drug is affordable to everyone who needs it. At most it should cost $10 per prescription (or $0.10 for a pill if they get 100 pills). We are responsible with our increased revenue--doing research for rare and fatal pediatric diseases.
Martin Shkreli
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Which other diseases do you want to focus on in the future?
LucySnowwhite
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anything fatal and pediatric.
spinal muscular atrophy...
duchenne...Martin Shkreli
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Who are the relevant researchers and what kind of credentials do they have? What are they working on, broadly? Which diseases?
profbarnhouse
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Our head of R&D is Dr. Eliseo Salinas who has 30 years of experiences in pharma and quite a track record. He has about 30 people working for him who are almost all PhDs or MDs.
Martin Shkreli
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There has got to be more to it than that. Care to elaborate?
JAH_1315
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i liked stocks a lot as a teenager and i heard someone talking about cramer and i weaseled my way into meeting him. i folded envelopes, opened mail, etc.
Martin Shkreli
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