In the United States, steep drug prices can restrict access to potential life-saving medications. When government-authorized patents on medications expire, drug rights are sold to new pharmaceutical companies that raise prices by as much as 6,000 percent. In December, I attended a conference at which Martin Shkreli, the provocative pharmaceutical CEO, said he didn’t go far enough when he raised the price of HIV drug Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent overnight. His comments were mostly greeted with jeers. On Thursday Shkreli was arrested by the FBI, amid a federal investigation related to his former hedge fund and a drug company he previously headed.
