The ‘Shkreli Awards’ — for dysfunction and profiteering in health care

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2025

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You remember a guy named Martin Shkreli? If his name rings a bell, it’s probably because back in 2015, he jacked up the price of an old drug — from around $13 a pill to $750. The media dubbed him “the pharma bro,” and he became a symbol of brazen pharmaceutical greed.

Now, he’s the namesake for the Shkreli Awards — a kind of Oscars for the most outrageous examples of greed, fraud, and general brokenness in American health care.

Every year, a health care think tank called the Lown Institute ranks the top ten worst stories and holds an award ceremony to “honor” the winners.

We’re bringing you highlights from this year’s ceremony – featuring things like human bones for sale without the consent of the deceased or their families, phantom urinary catheters, and so much more – and some reflections from the Lown Institute’s president, Dr. Vikas Saini.

“Showing all these stories together paints a picture of a health care system in desperate need of transformation,” Saini said at the ceremony. “Not just because the stories are shocking, but because often what they're depicting, like Martin Shkreli's infamous price hike, is perfectly legal.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there. So awards season has already started.
0:05.1	Good evening. And welcome to the 82nd Golden Globes, Ozympic's biggest night.
0:13.4	And okay, I did not watch the Golden Globes this year, but there is an awards show that's made basically just for nerds like me.
0:23.0	Hello everyone and welcome to the eighth annual Schrelli Awards.
0:27.8	The Schrelli Awards, named after the Pharma Bro Martin Schrelly.
0:32.3	Remember him?
0:33.1	He became famous, I mean infamous in 2015 when a company he ran took over the making of an old
0:39.2	drug called Deriprim. I mean, old, introduced in 1952, but it later became used to prevent a form
0:47.0	of pneumonia that people with HIV can develop. So Martin Schrelli jacked up the price from
0:52.7	$13.5 a pill to $750.
0:57.2	Rings a bell, right?
0:58.9	So who gives out awards named after that guy?
1:02.4	Answer, a health care think tank called the Lown Institute.
1:06.3	One of their big recent projects was ranking nonprofit hospitals by how much they do to earn their tax
1:12.3	exemptions. For instance, by giving out charity care. The Institute's president, Dr. Vakas Sani,
1:18.3	hosts the awards ceremony. So if this is your first time at the Schrelli Awards, this is our top
1:23.7	10 list of the most egregious examples of profiteering or dysfunction in health care.
1:30.0	I'm telling you, this is an awards show for nerds just like me. In fact, it's also like a celebration
1:36.7	of nerds kind of like me. Each one of the awful stories these awards are highlighting,
1:42.0	it was dug up and brought to light by journalists.
1:44.7	So this year, the journalist behind these stories will be receiving a Schrelli reporting award.
1:52.9	And I have one in my hand here.
	...

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