Former general counsel says he was fired after opposing huge price hike for drug
The former general counsel for Turing Pharmaceuticals told a Senate committee last Thursday that he was fired after he opposed raising the price of a parasite-fighting drug from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill.
Former GC Howard Dorfman said he told then-CEO Martin Shkreli that the price boost “would have a severely negative impact on Turing’s business and reputation,” report the New York Times, USA Today and Fortune. Dorfman lost his job two to three weeks later.
Shkreli told Dorfman he was “seriously misinformed” and no one cares about price increases, Dorfman testified.
Fortune says the price increase “catalyzed a firestorm of industry-wide criticism over pharma’s pricing practices” and was “one of the major PR fiascos” in the pharmaceutical sector’s recent history.
Shkreli resigned from Turing in December after he was charged with securities fraud in an unrelated matter.
