Australian schoolchildren recreated the drug, which Martin Shkreli raised the price 56 times

A group of Australian schoolchildren from Grammar School was able to synthesize the drug Daraprim (Daraprim), which is used to treat patients with toxoplasmosis and malaria. This drug is especially useful (one might say vital) for people with HIV who have weakened or no immunity at all. In the fall of 2015, Martin Shkreli (Martin Shkreli), the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals, bought for $ 55 million the rights to the original medicine, which cost was $ 13.50 and immediately raised its price to $ 750. Daraprim was launched on the market in 1953, and since then it has been used very actively.

“Daraprim” is not only the name of the medicine (its second name is pyrimethamine), but also the brand. This brand is protected, and the rights to it were in the hands of one owner. Australians, with the help of specialists from the University of Sydney, managed to synthesize a similar drug in the school lab. The project manager was Alice Williamson, a graduate chemist. She was struck by the actions of Shkreli, and she decided to show that there was no difficulty in synthesizing the drug, and there were no grounds for increasing the price by several dozen times either.

“I thought, why not try to synthesize Daraprim in the laboratory, because such synthesis is not too complicated. I also decided that if we can show that students without any training can create this drug, we will demonstrate how unreasonable the price of the official medication is, ”said Williamson.
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Fortunately, the Sydney Grammar School was able to afford to pay for equipment and chemicals for this experiment. In addition, this school has a suitable laboratory. Senior pupils expressed their desire to participate in the project. According to Williamson, they are all talented and confident in their abilities.

Participants talked about their work on the Internet . Scientists and ordinary users from all over the world could observe the course of the experiment and also give advice to students in order to improve the result of their work. Williamson and University of Sydney Professor Matthew Todd also sent students.

All this was done by the participants and users who observed them compared to the TV series “Breaking Bad”, where the chemistry teacher decided to start producing drugs.

“With proper support, they can do everything they need without problems,” Todd said, referring to the opportunities of the students. “Information for obtaining a medicine is in textbooks and other literature, but we changed some reagents because they were too dangerous. All data was posted online in real time, Alice, I and other people helped them. ”


One of the reagents used to obtain the drug, and powdered Daraprim in a transparent bottle

In addition to drawing attention to the drug situation, the project participants hoped to show that science is simple. So simple that even untrained students can get the right chemical compound. For this, we had to go through three stages of Daraprim synthesis, each of which is complex in its own way.

The success of the synthesis of the drug was confirmed about two weeks ago, when a sample of the final substance was analyzed in a chemical laboratory. "Alice did the analysis, looked at the screen and said:" My god, they did it. " And the resulting drug was very clean. According to project leaders, students jumped above their own heads, getting such pure substance.

Unfortunately, the authors of the project in the United States will not be able to sell the drug, since this would require a series of clinical trials that would confirm that the substance obtained is not inferior to the control samples of the drug.

To the question of whether schoolchildren can compete with Martin Shkreli, he answered very simply.


This story is a simple demonstration of what sometimes happens on the pharmaceutical market. A relatively simple medicine that can be synthesized by schoolchildren for as little as $ 2 costs $ 750 per package.


Martin shkreli

Unfortunately, this is not the only example. Another drug, Cycloserin, was purchased by Rodelis Therapeutics. And so expensive medicine, a vital patient with tuberculosis, has risen in price from $ 500 to $ 10,800 per pack (later, however, under public pressure, the price was again lowered ). Another company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, last year bought the rights to two drugs to normalize the cardiovascular system. We are talking about "izuprele" (izadrina) and "Nitropressa" (nitroprusside). The cost of drugs after the transaction increased immediately by 525% and 212%, respectively. The antibiotic doxycycline in 2014 went up from $ 20 to $ 1,849.

These are not the first and probably not the last cases made possible by the lack of proper control over the price of drugs on the pharmaceutical market.