Martin Shkreli, former pharmaceutical executive known as . Known for Unexpected increase in the price of life saving medicine, will have to pay $64.6 million and be banned from the pharmaceutical industry for life for violating antitrust law, a federal court ordered Friday.
Shkreli is serving a seven-year prison sentence For defrauding investors associated with his work running two hedge funds and a separate pharmaceutical company. This conviction is unrelated to the drug-price saga that propelled him to notoriety. He is expected to be released this year.
In 2015, Shkreli—a pharmaceutical entrepreneur in his early 30s who wasn’t well known outside his industry—acquired a decades-old drug, known as Daraprim, that was used for It is used to treat life-threatening parasitic infections, and its price has been raised to $750 per tablet. , from $13.50. The move alarmed politicians and the public, who were already concerned about rising drug prices and the role drug companies would play in making drugs affordable.
Most pharmaceutical executives raise prices more quietly and gradually, and with assurances about ensuring patient access, but Shkreli seemed unrepentant. He came to be known as “Pharma Bro” for his brutal attitude in the face of criticism. The BBC called him possibly “the most hated person in America”.
On Friday, Judge Dennis Cote of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that Shkreli had tried to maintain a monopoly on Daraprim through an anti-competitive strategy. The lawsuit was brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney general of seven states, including New York.
The judge found that Shkreli had violated state and federal antitrust laws and that his former company, now known as Vera Pharmaceuticals, brought in an additional $64.6 million in profit from the sale of Daraprim because of that conduct.
The court found that under Shkreli’s control, Vyra had changed the way the drug was distributed and disrupted competition in the generics market. “Consumers were harmed by higher prices and fewer drug choices,” the New York Attorney General’s Office said in a news release, prompting many patients and physicians to make difficult and risky decisions about treatment for life-threatening illnesses. was forced to.”
In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first generic version of Daraprim.
The court’s opinion said Shkreli’s “anti-competitive conduct at the expense of public health was presumptuous and reckless.”
Shkreli’s lawyers did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.
Shkreli has repeatedly defended his decision to raise the price of Daraprim, saying the profits will allow his company to develop better anti-parasitic drugs. When sentenced for his securities fraud conviction, he stated that he had never been motivated by money and had made mistakes in an attempt to enhance his reputation.
Shkreli continues to make headlines while in prison.
Around the same time he increased the price of the Daraprime, he bought a one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” at an auction for $2 million. After Shkreli was convicted of securities fraud, the government confiscated the album to pay part of the $7.36 million he owed.
Sarkar announced in the summer that it had sold the album but did not disclose the buyer or price. In the fall, a collective operating on the frontiers of digital art and cryptocurrency said it had purchased the recordings for $4 million.
In late 2020, Christy Smyth, a former Bloomberg News reporter who helped break the story of Shkreli’s 2015 arrest in a securities case, revealed in an Elle magazine article that she had fallen in love with him and they were in a relationship. She kept on advocating for him.
This month, another entrepreneur in health care, Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the blood testing startup Theranos, was found guilty of defrauding investors. His sentence has been fixed on September 26.
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