Remember the man who earned the nickname 'Pharma Bro' after buying the rights to and then raising the price of a critical HIV drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750? The one who, last May, also finished serving five years over unrelated counts of securities fraud and lying to investors about the company's success?
The outrage arose when, over the course of just a few days, Shkreli's wealth skyrocketed while many HIV patients found themselves unable to afford medicine. Some outlets called Shkreli "the most hated man in America."
While Martin Shkreli has since been laying lower, having left a low-security prison in Pennsylvania last May, he is once again in the news after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked a federal judge to hold him in contempt of court over trying to form another pharmaceutical company despite being issued a lifetime ban from the industry in a separate trial over the Daraprim scandal.
"Shkreli's egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running, and ultimately dangerous illegal conduct warrants imposition of an injunction of this scope," U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote wrote in an 135-page ruling in the winter of 2022.
Shkreli Has 'Flouted The Court's Order'
Cote also ruled that Vyera Pharmaceuticals, which Shkreli founded in 2015, must return the $64.6 million in profits that it earned after raising the price of Daraprim. After cutting ties with Shkreli, Vyera has settled its $40 million obligation with the FTC while Shkreli is yet to pay his share of $24.6 million.
On Friday, the FTC submitted documents saying that Shkreli has been trying to form a company "that appears to be involved in the pharmaceutical industry" since July 2022. A press release for Druglike reportedly presented it as hoping to "remove barriers to early-stage drug discover, increase innovation and allow a broader group of contributors to share the rewards."
"To date he has paid nothing toward the judgment, and has made no efforts to comply with this provision of the Order," reads the request submitted by the FTC to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. "[...] Plaintiffs expect, however, that Shkreli's finances may have improved since his release from prison in May 2022 and his release from a halfway house in September 2022."
On its own, contempt of court is subject to jail time or at very least a fine -- given Shkreli's past criminal history, the penalty if found guilty is likely to be more serious.
A Post-Prison Dabble In Cryptocurrency
Since leaving prison, Shkreli has been trying to quietly re-enter the pharmaceutical industry in not-so roundabout ways. Druglike was formed on Web3 and came with a native token called Martin Shkreli Inu. Just two weeks after launching, the token fell more than 72% to $0.00000678 while Shkreli blamed the failure by claiming he was "hacked."
But success or failure of the cryptocurrency aside, Shkreli is definitely not permitted by court to start any companies even tangentially related to drugs or pharmaceuticals. According to the FTC, Shkreli has not only not submitted reports about how he is complying with the ban but, in trying to form Druglike, violated what is a "clear and unambiguous" order.
"Shkreli has flouted the Court’s Order and Plaintiffs' efforts to monitor and assess his compliance with the Order," reads the FTC's request that Shkreli be charged with contempt of court.
