http://imprimispharma.investorroom.com/2015-10-22-Imprimis-Pharmaceuticals-to-Make-Compounded-and-Customizable-Formulation-of-Pyrimethamine-and-Leucovorin-Available-for-Physicians-to-Prescribe-for-their-Patients-as-an-Alternative-to-Daraprim

Imprimis Pharmaceuticals to Make Compounded and Customizable Formulation of Pyrimethamine and Leucovorin Available for Physicians to Prescribe for their Patients as an Alternative to Daraprim®

Imprimis forms Imprimis Cares to help combat the high prices of sole source legacy generic drugs

Oct 22, 2015

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMMY), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of proprietary compounded drug therapies, today announced it has made available a customizable compounded formulation of pyrimethamine and leucovorin available for physicians to consider prescribing for their patients as a low cost alternative to Daraprim®.

Last month, Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC, the sole supplier of Daraprim,increased the price of this prescription drug from $13.50 per tablet to a reported $750.00 per tablet.  The FDA-approved label for Daraprim indicates that it is prescribed for toxoplasmosis and other types of infections.  Toxoplasmosis can be of major concern for patients with weakened immune systems such as patients with HIV/AIDS, pregnant women and children.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pyrimethamine works to block folic acid synthesis in the parasite T. gondii, the cause of toxoplasmosis, and leucovorin helps to reverse the negative effects on bone marrow caused by this mechanism of action.

Imprimis is now offering customizable compounded formulations of pyrimethamine and leucovorin in oral capsules starting as low as $99.00 for a 100 count bottle, or at a cost of under a dollar per capsule.  Compounded medications may be appropriate for prescription when a commercially-available medicine does not meet the specific needs of a patient. For ordering information, please visit www.imprimiscares.com.

 

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Summation:

That price increse from Turing Pharmaceuticals LLC is immoral to say the least, so if someone can do something to stop them then it's good news for all of us.

I understand that Turing had high costs developing the treatment and that they should have that money back, but that doesn't mean that they can do whatever they want.

Good that those assholes are getting competition.

Oh, and I want to rewatch Trainspotting now...

My undertsanding was Turing had nothing to do with development. This treatment has existed for 60 years. They just bought it to profit off of it.

I assumed that the treatment was relatively new, that's why they were gready. There's no way in hell they can sell a 60 y.o. treatment for $750 and get away with it.

Daraprim, meanwhile, "is generic drug. There’s no research and development they had to do," said Gerard Anderson, a professor of health economics and finance at Johns Hopkins University.

The research and development for Daraprim happened long before Shkreli bought the rights. It’s the trade name for pyrimethamine, a drug created by Nobel Prize-winning scientist Gertrude Elion that can be used to treat malaria as well as toxoplasmosis.

Though no generic drug company has taken up manufacturing Daraprim (there are only about 2,000 U.S. patients who use the drug every year), it’s been available for reproduction for more than 60 years. That means its peers should be other generic drugs like ibuprofen, penicillin, and antibiotics, experts told us.

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What I found on it.

You clearly did more research than I, but it's always good to know more.

So basically they were (probably) the only ones making it and decided that they could price it as high as they wanted. How "nice" of them.