Turing Provides Key Facts To Congressional Oversight Committee

Testimony highlights access, affordability and investments in research

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nancy Retzlaff, Chief Commercial Officer for Turing Pharmaceuticals, today provided detailed oral and written testimony to U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Highlights from her testimony include:

“to hospitals in a smaller, 30-pill bottle, which can help to ensure availability and lower the cost of burden for hospitals.”

• Reinforcing Turing’s “commitment to ensure access to Daraprim for every single patient who needs the drug, regardless of ability to pay” and “to invest a large portion of the net revenues generated from Daraprim in research and development and improved drug treatments.”
• With no significant pharmaceutical innovation in the treatment of toxoplasmosis, Turing is “committed to bringing innovation to the treatment of neglected diseases.”
  • The company is “currently investing nearly 60 percent of net revenue into research and development.”
  • Thirty-six of Turing’s 139 employees are dedicated to R&D.
• As it relates to cost, “To our knowledge, no patient needs to pay $750 per pill for Daraprim. In fact, around two-thirds of patients get the drug through government programs that receive a discounted price of one penny per pill.”
• Turing has taken several additional steps to ensure affordable access to Daraprim:
  • “Fund a patient assistance program that offers Daraprim free of charge to qualified, uninsured patients with incomes at or below 500 percent of the federal poverty level”
  • “Provide co-pay support to help insured patients”
  • “Fund a ‘bridge program’ to give those with commercial insurance a supply of Daraprim at no charge if there are delays in coverage.”
• Effective November, Turing also “discount[ed] the price of Daraprim to hospitals by up to 50 percent… hospitals are the first to treat 80 percent of patients with the most common form of toxoplasmosis.”
  • Daraprim is also available “to hospitals in a smaller, 30-pill bottle, which can help to ensure availability and lower the cost of burden for hospitals.”

Full written testimony can be found at www.turingpharma.com/media.