Martin Shkreli, the reviled “pharma bro” who jacked up the price of a drug used to treat AIDS-related symptoms from $13 a pill to $750, was arrested on securities fraud charges this morning. Not for jacking up drug prices, but for stealing from his former company.
A boyish drug company entrepreneur, who rocketed to infamy by jacking up the price of a life-saving pill from $13.50 to $750, was arrested by federal agents at his Manhattan home early Thursday morning on securities fraud related to a firm he founded.
Martin Shkreli, 32, ignited a firestorm over drug prices in September and became a symbol of defiant greed. The federal case against him has nothing to do with pharmaceutical costs, however. Prosecutors in Brooklyn charged him with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc., a biotechnology firm he started in 2011, and using it to pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was later ousted from the company, where he’d been chief executive officer, and sued by its board.
Karma is truly a bitch, ain’t it? I hope they lock him up and take every dollar they can find from this asshole.
