Last month, In an 11-page letter posted on an American pharmaceutical company’s website, Martin Shkreli called for his temporary release from a Pennsylvania prison to enable him to use his special skills “to assist in research work on Covid-19”.
American health activists have rushed to oppose his application, citing his past history, and have launched a social media campaign to gather signatures for a mass petition to ensure his application for release from prison is not allowed.
Shkreli achieved notoriety after his pharmaceutical company in 2015 acquired the rights to manufacture Daraprim, a drug used in the treatment of malaria and HIV-infected patients – and then immediately limited its availability and mercilessly upped the price by 5,000%.
He is currently serving a seven-year sentence for (an unrelated) securities fraud in a Pennsylvania prison. (See editorial about the significance of that.)
As reported on Washington news site The Hill on 7 April, Shkreli has claimed in the letter/research proposal: “As a successful two-time biopharma entrepreneur, having purchased multiple companies, invented multiple new drug candidates, filed numerous INDs and clinical trial applications, I am one of the few executives experienced in all aspects of drug development from molecule creation and hypothesis generation, to preclinical assessments and clinical trial design, target engagement demonstration, manufacturing/ synthesis and global logistics and deployment of medicines.”
He acquired the rights to Thiola used to treat the rare disease cystinuria, then upped the price from $1.50 to $30 per pill. Patients need to take 10 pills per day
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Lennie The Liquidator Faces R500,000 Defamation Suit
After losing his cool when his fees were questioned
Panel Beater De Luxe
Danmar Autobody and its erstwhile directors get a serious panel beating in court papers. Corruption and theft are said to have destroyed the firm chaired by Nelson Mandela’s eldest daughter, leaving 200 workers destitute and threatening to kill.
Meet Covid Diarist Ronald Wohlman
Ronald Wohlman – EX SOUTH African copywriter, author, and actor – never dreamt that his lockdown diaries, written on Facebook and followed by people all over the world – would become his “life’s work”.
A Picture Of Peace?
Beware: Appearances can be deceptive
Flogging A (Battery-Driven) Dead Horse
Why plug-in vehicles are not all they’re cracked up to be– and, likely, never will be
Everybody Drinks Corona
I am hesitant to go Into the pub today. Not because it’s illegal, but there is a crème colored 1985 Mercedes 300D parked behind the pine tree. This means the devil is inside; that’s what we call Dr. De Villiers. You don’t know whether you will encounter the good doctor with the charming bedside manner or the violent, bipolar bully. The problem is, most of the time, you can never be sure which it is, so it’s best to always keep a social distance.
Never Take A Hypochondriac To A Pandemic
From Ronald Wohlman’s New York Corona Diary
The money train
Transnet in court battle with liquidators of Gupta-linked audit firm over R57m in ‘corrupt’ payments and invoices
‘He's no pharmaceutical genius, he's a vulture'
Pharma con seeks prison release to ‘help find Covid cure’
Bush school – A memoir
OUR SCHOOL WAS IN THE MIDDLE of the bush, ten miles from the nearest town in the harsh beauty of the Zimbabwean highveld. It started life in World War II as No 26 EFTS Guinea Fowl, a Royal Air Force elementary flying training school and I arrived there in 1954, just seven years after it became an all-white co-ed state boarding school.
