Australian school students create Martin Shkreli's rip-off drug for under $20
02 Dec 2016
US executive Martin Shkreli who attracted universal scorn for his greed when he raised the price of a tablet of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 last year, has been bested by a group of Australian high school students.
The Sydney school students have recreated the drug's key ingredient for just $20. The anti-parasitic drug is used by malaria and Aids patients.
The active ingredient, pyrimethamine was synthesised by the boys in their science school laboratory. The boys are just 17 years old.
"It wasn't terribly hard but that's really the point, I think, because we're high school students," one of the boys, Charles Jameson, told the BBC.
The students produced 3.7 grams of pyrimethamine for $20, which, in the US would fetch $110,000.
In most countries, including Australia and the UK, the drug sells for $1.50 per pill.
The boys conducted the year-long experiment to highlight the inflated cost of the drug in the US.
"It seems totally unjustified and ethically wrong," student James Wood said. "It's a life-saving drug and so many people can't afford it."
Supervising teacher Dr Malcolm Binns said, "Everyone is very happy and pleased with the result. All the boys think it's the most amazing thing."
Another student Milan Leonard told Australia's ABC News that he and his classmates worked on the project to highlight the "ridiculous" price of the drug, which costs A$13 for a bottle of 50 tablets in Australia.
The students received help from Open Source Malaria, a project supported by the University of Sydney and the Australian government, dedicated to finding a cure for malaria "guided by open source principles."
Another student, Brandon Lee, described the feeling of making the final discovery.
"At first there was definitely disbelief," Lee told the ABC. "We spent so long and there were so many obstacles... it surprised us, like, 'Oh, we actually made this material' and 'This can actually help people out there'.
"So it was definitely disbelief but then it turned in to happiness as we realised we finally got to our main goal."