Critical Analysis One
Matthew Herper a journalists for Forbes, had lunch with one of today’s most infamous people on September 24, 2015. Martin Shkreli raised the price of a drug that treats HIV positive patients by over five thousand percent. The drug went from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill. Herper states that Martin is a very intelligent man but acts as a antisocial sociopath. After raising the price of the drug overnight, he became the face of capitalistic greed. ("Forbes Welcome," n.d.) Shkreli was not the first to raise prices of effective drugs, but the way he portrayed himself made him an easy target for the government to pick on. Shkreli cares more about his patients than anyone else, which is hard to believe after raising the price of a life saving drug to $750. He doesn’t think he has done anything wrong, because other big companies do the same thing and are not reprimanded by the government or press. Herper describes Shkreli as a, “teenage vampire from some 1980s movie.” Shkreli makes it seem that he built his own empire from nothing, which is somewhat true coming from a poor household in Brooklyn. Martin graduated from a prestigious high school two years early. He was then hired onto Jim Cramer’s hedge fund. ("Forbes Welcome," n.d.) After being hired, Martin convinced a group of investors to contribute to his first drug
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Other companies have benefited greatly from increases also, Questcor Pharmaceuticals raised the price of it’s drug from $40 to $28,000 and was one of the best performing stocks in America until it was bought out. No one was reprimanded for this action. The owner Michael Pearson is a billionaire, but the focus is still on Shkreli because he is easier to hate. Shkreli has a live broadcast of his life, almost 24/7. He plays Internet games, buys expensive Wu-Tang Clan products, and tweets lyrics of Eminem’s songs. ("Forbes Welcome,"
The multinational pharmaceutical firm, Wellcome PLC, brought a product to the market to help treat the symptoms of AIDS and HIV. Wellcome PLC owns an American subsidiary known as the Burroughs Wellcome Company. In 1987, Burroughs Wellcome Company received FDA approval to sale Retrovir, which interferes with the ability of HIV infected cells to produce new virus. Burroughs Wellcome Company finds itself under siege in September 1989 by AIDS activists and various segments of the U.S. government. Despite two reductions in price in the last two years, Burroughs Wellcome Company’s executive management is under unrelenting pressure to decrease the price of Retrovir so that many more people can afford the prescription.
Bernie Sanders Vermont Senator wrote in resentment: “Americans should not have to live in fear that they will die or go bankrupt because they cannot afford to take the life-saving medication they need.” CBS notes Hillary Clintons campaign on the gauging of life saving medications as she states: "Drug companies should not be allowed to reap excessive profits or spend unreasonable amounts on marketing if they want to receive support that is designed to encourage life- saving and health-improving treatments.” American"s are outraged, ideally majority of people who do
Many businesses that achieve great success become greedy and want more. Pharmaceutical companies, such as Turing, have been overpricing life-saving drugs since they’ve been discovered. Martin Shkreli, the CEO of the company that raised the price of the H.I.V medicine, was arrested because of wrongdoings involving his former hedge fund and a pharmaceutical company he previously headed. He has been charged with conspiracy to commit security fraud, wire fraud, and using his previous company to cover personal debts. U.S. Attorney Robert Capers says, “As alleged in the indictment, Shkreli essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme, where he used each subsequent company to pay off the defrauded investors in the prior company” (Shkreli).
We weren’t necessarily looking into a problem, but we were trying to see what alters Nike’s stock prices. We did so by running Nike’s stocks against three competitors’: Adidas, Under Armour, and Lululemon. We obtained stock prices for all companies at the end of Nike’s fiscal year, June 30th, to maintain consistency between company data. To look deeper into these stocks, we also changed
The stock market is an enigma to the average individual, as they cannot fathom or predict what the stock market will do. Due to this lack of knowledge, investors typically rely on a knowledgeable individual who inspires the confidence that they can turn their investments into a profit. This trust allowed Jordan Belfort to convince individuals to buy inferior stocks with the belief that they were going to make a fortune, all while he became wealthy instead. Jordan Belfort, the self-titled “Wolf of Wall Street”, at the helm of Stratton Oakmont was investigated and subsequently indicted with twenty-two counts of securities fraud, stock manipulation, money laundering and obstruction of justice. He went to prison at the age of 36 for defrauding an estimated 100 million dollars from investors through his company (Belfort, 2009). Analyzing his history of offences, how individual and environmental factors influenced his decision-making, and why he desisted from crime following his prison sentence can be explained through rational choice theory.
In 2000, Rich Kender, Vice President of Financial Evaluation and Analysis at Merck & Company was discussing the opportunity of investing in licensing, manufacturing and marketing of Davanrik, a drug originally developed to treat depression by LAB Pharmaceuticals. LAB proposed to sell the right of all the future profit made from the successful launch of Davanrik at the cost of an initial fee, royalty payments and additional payments as the drug completed each stage of the approval process. Merck & Company's organizational goal is to constantly refresh it's company's drug development portfolio and reach as many customers as possible during the patented time. So there was not only the potential of financial gain or quantitative aspect of the offer, but also the qualitative value which will be added by getting better positioning in the risky pharmaceuticals industry.
Bernard Madoff had full control of the organizational leadership of Bernard Madoff Investments Securities LLC. Madoff used charisma to convince his friends, members of elite groups, and his employees to believe in him. He tricked his clients into believing that they were investing in something special. He would often turn potential investors down, which helped Bernard in targeting the investors with more money to invest. Bernard Madoff created a system which promised high returns in the short term and was nothing but the Ponzi scheme. The system’s idea relied on funds from the new investors to pay misrepresented and extremely high returns to existing investors. He was doing this for years; convincing wealthy individuals and charities to invest billions of dollars into his hedge fund. And they did so because of the extremely high returns, which were promised by Madoff’s firm. If anyone would have looked deeply into the structure of his firm, it would have definitely shown that something is wrong. This is because nobody can make such big money in the market, especially if no one else could at the time. How could one person, Madoff, hold all of his clients’ assets, price them, and manage them? It is clearly a conflict of interest. His company was showing high profits year after year; despite most of the companies in the market having losses. In fact, Bernard Madoff’s case is absolutely stunning when you consider the range and number of investors who got caught up in it.
3Walker, Hugh: Market Power and Price levels in the Ethical Drug Industry; Indiana University Press, 1971, P 25.
Linette Lopez writes in her article on BusinessInsider.com [Dec 18 2013 13.15] “The best and worst things about ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’” that the victim’s perspective is missing and therefore not displaying Jordan Belfort as the villain he truly is. This is wrong, because in one part Belfort explains how he lures his clients into investing in penny stocks and thus pumping up the prices of the stocks. Then Jordan Belfort and his company Stratton
Bernie Madoff is one of the greatest conman in history. The Bernie Madoff scandal takes the gold as one of the top ponzi scheme in America. Madoff started the Wall Street firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, in 1960. Starting off as a penny stock trader with five thousand dollars, earned from his workings as a lifeguard and sprinkler installer, his firm began to grow with the support of his father-in-law, Saul Alpern, who helped by referred a group of close friends and family. Originally, his firm made markets by the National Quotations Bureau’s Pink Sheets. However, in order to compete with the bigger firms that were trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor, his firm started to use very intelligent computer software that help distributed their quotes in second’s rater then minutes. This software later became the NASDAQ that we know today. In December of 2008 Bernard Madoff confessed that he had embezzling billions of dollars from investors. It is estimated to have lasted nearly two decades, and stolen approximately $64.8 billion. On December 11, 2008 he was arreste...
Martinez, Barbara “Firms Paid to Trim Drug Costs Also Toil for Drug Makers” The Wall Street
That was not enough in another interview he said that he would have had raised the price higher than 750 dollars, but he did not. Not only did the public react negatively, but former candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted, “A life-saving drug does no good if the people who need it cannot afford that drug.” Although Martin Shkreli is a Donald Trump supporter, he donated 2,700 dollars which Berine Sanders did not accept. The only reason why he donated was because of the proposed that Bernie Sanders make about the import of prescription drugs from Canada would be cheaper. However, ones the only was rejected Martin Shkreli tweeted “If @BernieSanders was a parasite what would he be? TAXOPLASMOSIS!” with a picture of a dog. People then started to react back by tweeting things like “Bernie is hardly a parasite. He is a person who cares about people. Unlike yourself (David Hunt).” There were other tweets cussing him out saying things like the dog hat he put in the Bernie Sanders tweet looks nicer than him. Moreover, Martin Shkreli is not sorry for what he has said in his twitter. We know this because he posted a video of Kanye West in the Ellen Show, saying how he did not care of what he had put on twitter and that there is no reason for him to think about what he posted. Above the link to the video Martin Shkreli wrote “ this is me (Kanye).” People like Martin Shkreli do not care how they treat people all they care about is money and
10. Collis, David, and Troy Smith. "Strategy in the Twenty-First Century Pharmaceutical Industry:Merck&Co. and Pfizer Inc." Harvard Business School, 2007: 8-12.
For everyone in the business world, Mark Zuckerberg is a well-known name to them. He is an undeniably young, successful businessman. However, Zuckerberg is also a very successful leader in his own company as well as in the world. His impact from creating Facebook is more than just impressive. Zuckerberg created the social media website where people get connected virtually and led the company to incredible success. Zuckerberg’s leadership style can be seen with inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and idealized influence. With all the aforementioned components, Mark Zuckerberg is a great example of transformational leadership.
The original case was about Chiron, a biotechnology company, in the United States. Chiron was acquired in 2006 by Novartis, a Swedish company formed by the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz Laborites. Since Chiron itself no longer exists, we have focused our case around Novartis as of 2013. Novartis specializes in diagnostic services, generic and name brand medications, ophthalmological tools, as well as a small segment in pet health. The business prides itself in producing the latest drugs, hiring the best talent, and being a global leader in the pharmaceutical industry. Over the years the company has survived by focusing on its internal development in addition to a series of mergers, acquisitions, and corporate restructurings. Being a pharmaceutical company, the entire population is impacted: patients, physicians, employees, hospitals, and investors are some of the most important stakeholders.