Vyera Pharmaceuticals and its parent company Phoenixus AG (formerly Turing Pharmaceuticals) agreed to a $40 million settlement for illegally monopolizing Dapaprim, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Daraprim is the only FDA-approved life-saving drug that contains pyrimethamine – the gold standard for treating people with a parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis.
In 2020, the FTC and New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit against Vyera Pharmaceuticals, its co-founders Martin Shkreli also known as Pharma Bro, and Kevin Mulleady for allegedly engaging in an elaborate scheme to maintain its illegal monopoly of Daraprim.
The states of California, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia joined the lawsuit against the defendants.
The FTC and its state co-plaintiffs alleged that Vyera Pharmaceuticals, Shkreli, and Mulleady dramatically increased Daraprim’s price from $17.50 to $750 per tablet after acquiring the rights to the life-saving drug in August 2015.
