Turing Pharmaceuticals
| Private | |
| Industry | Pharmaceuticals |
| Founded | February 2015 |
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | New York City and Zug, Switzerland |
|
Key people
|
Ron Tilles Chief Executive Officer |
| Products | Vecamyl, Daraprim |
| Website | www |
Turing Pharmaceuticals is a pharmaceutical company incorporated in Zug, Switzerland, with offices in New York City. The company has two marketed products - daraprim (pyrimethamine), for the treatment of toxoplasmosis, and Vecamyl (mecamylamine hydrochloride) for the treatment of hypertension. The company was widely criticized for raising the price of daraprim by over 5000% following its acquisition of rights to the drug in 2015. The company was named after the British pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing.
Turing Pharmaceuticals was launched in February 2015 by Martin Shkreli with the acquisition of three major assets from an orphan drug developer called Retrophin: an intranasal formulation of ketamine, an nasal solution, and Vecamyl. The company acquired the US marketing rights to Daraprim from Impax Laboratories in August 2015.
In September 2015, Turing raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 a tablet. This increase prompted widespread criticism of the company from many quarters, including the pharmaceutical industry itself.
After Shkreli's arrest, on charges that he defrauded investors in his former hedge fund, he resigned as Turing Pharmaceuticals' CEO on 18 December 2015.
Daraprim is the trade name for the drug Pyrimethamine, which is indicated for the treatment of toxoplasmosis in combination with a sulfonamide, and has been available since 1953. At the time of the Daraprim acquisition Turing Pharmaceuticals indicated that it intended to develop new toxoplasmosis drug candidates with better ADME than Daraprim.
In response to criticisms of the September 2015 price increases, Turing Pharmaceuticals announced various patient affordability and access initiatives and in November 2015 the company reduced the cost of Daraprim for hospitals by up to 50% of the increased rate. Despite these partial rollbacks to the initial price increase, according to February 2, 2016 memo from Representative Elijah Cummings to the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, since Turing's acquisition to the rights in Daraprim, the drug has gone from being affordable and readily available to being prohibitively expensive.
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