Martin Shkreli, former hedge-fund manager and founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals is not a popular fellow these days. Shkreli purchased Turing at the beginning of the year along with the rights to Daraprim, a drug that treats a rare but severe infection afflicting HIV/AIDS and cancer patients and was approved decades before Shkreli was born.
Recently Shkreli announced a price change for the drug – from $13.70 per pill to $750 per pill. Yep, you got that right. The announcement was not well received by any means. Initially, Shkreli responded to people’s disbelief with a flippant attitude. Basically letting them know he was raising the price because he could, and the profits would be funneled to shareholders and research-development efforts for improvements and other drugs.
The industry has hidden behind such tactics a lot in the last several years, but usually relating to newer drugs they develop, so their comments can hide behind the cost of developing a drug and getting it to market. For Daraprim, that is not the case.
Alan Ripp, Ripp Media
Allan Ripp, founder of Ripp Media / Public Relations, Inc., a New York-based PR firm, has been spending a lot of time answering queries about Shkreli and Turning Pharm, and helping with crisis management.
Helping Shkreli get word out finally that the price would be dropped from the originally listed amount of $750 per tablet. Unfortunately for Ripp, the new amount has not yet been given, so queries and bad feelings continue.
Ripp Media helps clients in the fields of intellectual properties and life sciences, financial services and wealth management, corporate law, real estate, and securities litigation. They provide assistance with media skills and writing. Associates at the firm provide experience in finance, journalism, law, and publishing.
The firm has frequently employed former practicing attorneys to help with their many legal clients.
Mr. Ripp’s past experience includes work as a staff writer for Time and People magazines, a print journalist, a contributor to The New York Times, an editor with CBS magazines, and a reporter for the Hearst newspapers.
Past and present clients include Bien Cuit Bakery, Morrison & Foerster, BDO Seidman, Venable LLP, Pillsbury Winthrop, Deloitte and Touche, NERA, and Foley Hoag