And the ‘Shkreli Award’ goes to …

Abstract: Through the years, we’ve learned not to underestimate the lengths to which institutions and individuals will go to protect their bottom lines. We like to think that no bad behavior can surprise us anymore—but then we learn better. Last year, we found a pharmaceutical company seeking the financially advantageous “orphan” drug designation for a drug it said was for a rare disease. The disease was COVID-19. When we put all the examples of Shkreli-like behavior together, they stop looking like anecdotes and start looking like evidence. That’s the point of the awards: to highlight the structural weaknesses in health care that allow this kind of behavior to occur.