“World’s most hated man” agrees to reduce drug price

The man who outraged the world by hiking the price of a lifesaving drug by over 5000 percent has agreed to lower its cost.

Entrepreneur and fund manager Martin Shkreli, 32, shocked even the most-hardened businessperson after his pharmaceutical company bought the rights to the drug Daraprim and immediately increased the price from $13.50 to $750 per tablet.

The medicine, which has been around since the 1950s, is used to fight parasitic toxoplasmosis infections in people with compromised immune systems, such as those living with HIV.

Shkreli was condemned by the likes of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the HIV Medicine Association and US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

In a letter, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), America’s largest LGBT rights group, said that Shkreli’s “greed in raising the single-pill price from less than $15 to more than $750 is unconscionable.”

On Wednesday, Shkreli told NBC News that the flood of anger from around the globe, including him being dubbed “the most hated man in the world,” had convinced him to change course.

“Yes it is absolutely a reaction — there were mistakes made with respect to helping people understand why we took this action, I think that it makes sense to lower the price in response to the anger that was felt by people,” he said.

Shkreli has not yet revealed what the new cost will be for Daraprim. He earlier justified the extreme price hike by arguing that his company needed to make a profit.