One day after getting placed in handcuffs and charged with seven counts of securities fraud and conspiracy, pharmaceutical bad boy Martin Shkreli resigned from his job as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
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Mr Shkreli attracted widespread attention this fall after Turing bought the rights and raised the price more than 50-fold for a half-century-old drug that treats a parasitic infection that can be life threatening in HIV patients, pregnant women and others with compromised immune systems. Following extreme criticism for the increase, including from Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump, Shkreli said he would keep the $750 price but would offer volume discounts.
Retrophin said in a statement: “A new chapter for Retrophin began the day the company replaced Martin Shkreli more than a year ago – and that decision has been vindicated by today’s indictment”.
The identity of the album’s buyer was kept private at the time of the sale, which was agreed earlier in the year (15), but he was recently identified as Shkreli, who was widely condemned for raising the price of AIDS medication from £9 to £500 per pill.
Shkreli, 32, was arrested at his midtown Manhattan apartment in NYC on Thursday morning following accusations that he had essentially funneled funds from his former biopharmaceutical company, Retrophin, to angry investors who had lost money through the hedge fund he also started, MSMB Capital Management. He is now running the company on an interim basis, according to a Turing statement. In November, however, Shkreli released partial financial results in an effort to demonstrate that Turing was serious about developing new drugs. He posted $5 million bond later that afternoon, leaving the courtroom pale as a ghost with a trail of reporters clambering for comment.
He tweeted last night he was “glad to be home”.
“Thanks for your support”, Shkreli told some 800 viewers on the Youtube broadcast.
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Shkreli is also the CEO of KaloBios, a publicly traded company that saw its shares drop 53 percent yesterday.
