CTV News reports about Pharma Bro, Martin Shkreli. He was the one who hiked up the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000% last 2015. This led people to hate the man and accuse him of corporate greed. This all happened when his company acquired the rights to the drug which pushed the price from US$13.50 to $750 per tablet.
The former CEO and hedge fund manager is tweeting about the schoolboys’ breakthrough. The Sydney Grammar School was able to recreate the active component in the anti-parasitic medication Daraprim.
Martin Shkreli’s $750 Life-Saving Drug Recreated By High School Students For $2
The teenagers produced 3.7 grams of the key ingredient, pyrimethamine, in their high school chemistry lab for only AU$20, which works out to AU$2 per pill. Daraprim is used to treat infections such as malaria and toxoplasmosis, particularly in patients with weakened immune systems, such as those living with HIV, undergoing chemotherapy or pregnant women. Read more…
Science Alert explains that the students were motivated because it was a world-wide problem. Daraprim is on WHO’s top list of essential medicines. This is used to treat major conditions like HIV and serves as a chemotherapeutic agent for cancer patients.
It’s been a year since the school kids tried to create the active ingredient as part of an after-school project. Austin Zhang, one of the students, told The Sydney Morning Herald that thinking about it as a real-world problem pumped up their eagerness to work on the medication.
Students Have Made Martin Shkreli’s $750 Drug In Their Chem Lab For Just $2
The students were working with University of Sydney chemist Alice Williamson through an online research-sharing platform called Open Source Malaria, which aims to use publicly available drugs and medical techniques to treat malaria. Read more…
ABC Australia talks with one of the students, Milan Leonard. Leonard says the price overseas is not just. He shares his experience when he and his classmates realized that their efforts produced good results.
The student said, “It was ecstatic, it was bliss, it was euphoric.” University of Sydney research chemist Alice Williamson talks about how the boys were able to synthesize the ingredient. Read on their full story below.
Daraprim Drug’s Key Ingredient Recreated By High School Students In Sydney For Just $20
Turing Pharmaceuticals continue to sell the only FDA-approved form of the drug in the US, and last year, said federal and state health schemes answered questions of access and affordability. Read more…
This success presents hope for those who have had trouble in acquiring the drug because of the price. If the drug will be made available for a reasonable price, that will surely be beneficial to humankind.
Image Credit: ABC News
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