Pharma bro and one-time owner of Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, Martin Shkreli, has been banned from the pharmaceutical industry and ordered to return profits he made from price-gouging the drug Daraprim.
The Associated Press reports that US District Judge Denise Cote ruled in New York on Friday (January 14) that the imprisoned ex-CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals — later Vyera Pharmaceuticals LLC — would have to pay $64.6 million USD after raising the price of a single pill of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 back in 2015.
"Shkreli was no side player in, or a 'remote, unrelated' beneficiary of Vyera's scheme," Cote wrote in a 135-page opinion. "He was the mastermind of its illegal conduct and the person principally responsible for it throughout the years."
"'Envy, greed, lust, and hate,' don't just 'separate,' but they obviously motivated Mr. Shkreli and his partner to illegally jack up the price of a life-saving drug as Americans' lives hung in the balance," New York Attorney General Letitia James said. "But Americans can rest easy because Martin Shkreli is a pharma bro no more."
Shkreli is currently serving a seven-year sentence at a federal prison in Allenwood, PA, after being found guilty on charges of securities fraud related to two failed hedge funds.
When he was sentenced in 2018, Shkreli was ordered to forfeit the sole copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album, as well as Lil Wayne's Tha Carter V. The Wu-Tang Clan album was later sold off to an unknown buyer in 2021 for $4 million USD.
Martin Shkreli's story was recently explored in new documentary Pharma Bro.
The Associated Press reports that US District Judge Denise Cote ruled in New York on Friday (January 14) that the imprisoned ex-CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals — later Vyera Pharmaceuticals LLC — would have to pay $64.6 million USD after raising the price of a single pill of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 back in 2015.
"Shkreli was no side player in, or a 'remote, unrelated' beneficiary of Vyera's scheme," Cote wrote in a 135-page opinion. "He was the mastermind of its illegal conduct and the person principally responsible for it throughout the years."
"'Envy, greed, lust, and hate,' don't just 'separate,' but they obviously motivated Mr. Shkreli and his partner to illegally jack up the price of a life-saving drug as Americans' lives hung in the balance," New York Attorney General Letitia James said. "But Americans can rest easy because Martin Shkreli is a pharma bro no more."
Shkreli is currently serving a seven-year sentence at a federal prison in Allenwood, PA, after being found guilty on charges of securities fraud related to two failed hedge funds.
When he was sentenced in 2018, Shkreli was ordered to forfeit the sole copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album, as well as Lil Wayne's Tha Carter V. The Wu-Tang Clan album was later sold off to an unknown buyer in 2021 for $4 million USD.
Martin Shkreli's story was recently explored in new documentary Pharma Bro.
