Sydney schoolboys made Martin Shkreli’s $US750 HIV drug for $AU2

December 1, 2016  23:45

A team of Sydney schoolboys have taken on Martin Shkreli, the “big pharma bro” who outraged the world when he inflated the price of an essential drug from $US13.50 to $US750 per tablet.

Year 11 students in Sydney have created the exact same drug in their school lab for $AU2 a dose, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.

The drug is called Daraprim, and it’s an anti-parasitic medicine used to treat people with low immune systems. It’s classed as an essential medicine by the World Health Organisation, and is used to treat people living with HIV, chemotherapy patients and pregnant women.

Back in September 2015, Martin Shkreli gained control of Turing Pharmaceuticals and attracted very heavy criticism when he increased the price of the drug by more than 5000 per cent. (Seriously?)

People called him a “morally bankrupt sociopath”, and “everything that is wrong with capitalism”. Even Hillary Clinton lashed out, describing Shkreli as “the face of unapologetic profiteering from the suffering of humans.”

As they say: Where there is a will, there is a way.

Dr Alice Williamson, a research chemist and lecturer at the University of Sydney, figured it was the perfect drug to synthesise in a school lab for chemistry students at Sydney Grammar School.

One of the boys involved in the project, James Wood, 17, told the SMH that the background of the drug meant the project seemed more important.

Another Sydney Grammar student, Austin Zhang, 17, said, “working on a real-world problem definitely made us more enthusiastic.”

To make the Daraprim, the boys collaborated with their chemistry teacher, Dr Malcolm Binns. The end product was synthesised last week, and Dr Williamson tested its purity before declaring it the same as the original drug.

The question is: Could they sell it on the open market in the US?

“To take the drug to market as a generic, you need to compare it to Turing’s product. If Turing won’t allow the comparisons to take place, you’d need to fund a whole new trial,” explained Dr Binns.

It’s a phenomenal achievement by the students and Dr Williamson says the next challenge is to work with kids from all sorts of schools. “Not all schools have the lab facilities that Sydney Grammar has,” she said.

On Wednesday the boys presented their results at the Royal Australian Chemical Institute NSW Organic Chemistry symposium, alongside honours and postgraduate students.

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