SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – A group of high school students in Sydney, Australia have re-created Daraprim, a life-saving anti-parasitic drug, with $20 in materials.
The students synthesized a key ingredient of the drug, pyrimethamine, in their school science laboratory. The drug is used primarily by AIDS patients and those with weak or inactive immune systems, who cannot fight off infection otherwise.
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Daraprim costs $750 per tablet in the United States, after Martin Shkreli raised the price 5000% in August, from $13.50.
The amount of Daraprim created by the students, with only $20 of materials, would sell for up to $110,000 by current U.S prices.
The boys say this was the result of a year-long experiment intended to highlight the drug's inflated cost in the US.
Shkreli has since dismissed the students' achievement, posting on Twitter that it is easy to make a small quantity of the drug, commenting, "I should use high school kids to make my medicines. Why buy my equipment when I can use the lab's for free?! And those teachers who told them what to do, they'll work for free, right?"