Get ready for the 2022 Shkreli Awards!
The Lown Institute’s annual Shkreli Awards highlight the most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction in our healthcare system. From systemic failures to negligence to fraud, the Shkreli Awards are here to spotlight the worst. On January 10 at 1 pm ET, we will be counting down the top ten most glaring examples of our broken system, and you’re invited!
The Shkreli Awards are named after the infamous “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli, the former CEO of pharmaceutical companies Retrophin and Turing, who raised the price of the drug Daraprim by over 5,000%. This drug in particular was used for HIV/AIDS and cancer patients. After facing immediate backlash, Shkreli doubled down on his decision and told the Financial Times, “to me, the drug was woefully underpriced.” He was convicted on three fraud charges in August 2017. In January of this year, a federal judge ordered Shkreli to return the $64.6 million in profits that he had taken in from the drug hike.
Shkreli is just one face of a deeply broken system though. Every year, other bad actors embrace his capitalism-at-all-costs approach to the detriment of their fellow humans, and they deserve public awareness too. Last year, our winners were “innovative” profiteers, who had particularly creative ways of milking the health system for money. Our countdown began with suppository users experiencing the discomfort of a 5,000% price increase, similar to Daraprim. Other winners included a hospital steering patients to the ER for COVID testing to inflate their bills; a drug manufacturer developing a COVID pill with federal funds and then charging patients 40x its production cost, and the Sackler family slithering out of paying their opioid crisis victims.
It can be depressing to work and interact with a system as dysfunctional as the American healthcare system. That’s why we at the Lown Institute host the Shkreli Awards – to poke fun at the ludicrous behavior of some of the worst actors in this system.
“By displaying all of this shocking material in one place, we hope to build demand for a better system.”
Dr. Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute
Join us on Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at 1 pm ET as we countdown the winners this year.