Former pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli was ordered to pay a $64.6 million fine and was banned from participating in the pharmaceutical industry “in any capacity” Friday.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Denise Cote came in response to an antitrust suit filed against Shkreli, a 38-year-old often called “Pharma Bro.” In 2020, New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed a suit arguing he engaged in illegal monopolistic behavior to increase the price of anti-malarial drug Daraprim. The Federal Trade Commission and seven states joined the suit.
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“‘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 lifesaving drug as Americans’ lives hung in the balance,” James said in a statement following the ruling. “But Americans can rest easy because Martin Shkreli is a pharma bro no more.”
The court determined that Shkreli’s Vyera Pharmaceuticals, formerly known as Turing Pharmaceuticals, obtained $64.6 million in excess profits when it increased the price of Daraprim. The court said that estimate was conservative and Shkreli was liable. Money collected via the fine will be distributed to the states that joined the lawsuit, which include California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Under Shkreli’s leadership, the company raised the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill in 2015 after obtaining exclusive rights to the drug. The drug fights a rare parasitic disease and can prevent malaria and other infections. The court determined that his cornering of the market to raise prices violated U.S. antitrust laws.
“The Plaintiffs presented a wealth of evidence that Shkreli conducted a comprehensive scheme that violated the antitrust laws of the United States and the competition laws of the seven States,” the judge wrote. “The Plaintiffs have demonstrated that a lifetime ban against Shkreli’s future participation in the pharmaceutical industry will protect the public from suffering a repetition of the unlawful schemes proven in this case.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to representatives of Shkreli for comment but did not receive a response.
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Shkreli resigned from Turing in 2015 after being arrested on charges of defrauding investors. The charges were related to hedge fund work he did prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry. Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2018 after being found guilty on those charges. He is currently serving that prison sentence.
Vyera settled a different lawsuit with the FTC and those seven states in December, Reuters reported. Vyera agreed to $40 million in relief to customers. In addition, Vyera agreed to stop its anti-competitive practices with Daraprim. The case was also heard by Cote.
