pharma

Big Pharma Dealt Crushing Blow

Follow the money is going to apply for a long time. Another offender has been nailed. Martin Shkreli, part of the big pharma company Vyera Pharmaceuticals saw the opportunity for wealth and cranked up the price on Daraprim by over 5,000%. The lawsuit from the FTC and several states including New York and California has ordered him to pay back $64.6 million. Justice is served after seven years.

Big Pharma

Is among the fields in healthcare that have seen a boom in growth. After what he did, Shkreli can’t operate in this field anymore now. The federal judge banned him for life.

Shkreli is also in prison for securities fraud from the same plaintiffs. Shkreli’s former business partner Kevin Mulleady is also banned but for less time, seven years.

Big Pharma isn’t just about COVID

Shkreli price gouged a different drug, one that is meant for parasitic infections in pregnant ladies, babies and HIV patients. New York Attorney General Letitia James was happy to say he won’t be doing this again, “Americans can rest easy because Martin Shkreli is a pharma bro no more.”

Daraprim was only $13.50 per pill. Shkreli raised it to a ridiculous $750 per pill in 2015. He took advantage of his drug being the only approved one to deal with the parasitic ailment toxoplasmosis.

Big Pharma money grab

Judge Denise Cote noted being banned from an industry isn’t taken lightly. This case was worked on over seven days without a jury. She thought that banning, “is a serious remedy and must be done with care and only if equity demands.”

Cote continued, “Shkreli’s egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running, and ultimately dangerous illegal conduct warrants imposition of an injunction of this scope.” In 2015 Shkreli “initiated a scheme to block the entry of generic drug competition so that he could reap the profits from Daraprim sales for as long as possible. Through his tight control of the distribution of Daraprim, Shkreli prevented generic drug companies from getting access to the quantity of Daraprim they needed to conduct testing demanded by the Food and Drug Administration. Through exclusive supply agreements, Shkreli also blocked off access to the two most important manufacturers of the active pharmaceutical ingredient … for Daraprim. Shkreli delayed the entry of generic competition for at least eighteen months. Shkreli and his companies profited over $64 million from this scheme.”

Big Pharma competition

Was squashed. That earned him condemnation and outrage. He earned the nickname “Pharma Bro” when he purchased a one-of-a-kind Wu Tang Clan album for $2 million.

Shkreli did the price gouging under the name Turing Pharmaceuticals. He was also charged with defrauded investors in 2016 in a couple of hedge funds he set up to fund another drug company called Retrophin. He looted Retrophin to pay back the investors for their losses. He had a $5 million release bond revoked by a judge and has had to surrender assets, including his Wu-Tang Clan album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” for a reported $2.4 million.

 

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