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When Turing Pharmaceuticals and its reviled CEO Martin Shkreli sparked outrage last September by jacking up the price of the toxoplasmosis-fighting drug Daraprim, Bill Sullivan had a story to tell. His parasite research lab at the Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine had just published a study showing that a drug already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration successfully treats toxoplasmosis in mice, and could soon offer an alternative to Daraprim’s exorbitant cost. “The fact that Daraprim was raised from $13.50/pill to $750/pill provided a strong impetus to shout our discovery from the rooftops,” Sullivan wrote in an email to The Scientist.
He decided his group’s paper, published online in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in August 2015, merited special attention. “I generally leave ...