Martin Shkreli has been ordered to return $64.6 million in profits he and his former company reaped from jacking up the price and monopolizing the market for a lifesaving drug.
On Friday, a federal judge ruled that the former drug company boss would also be barred from the pharmaceutical industry for the rest of his life.
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote’s announced her ruling weeks after a seven-day bench trial in December that featured recorded evidence Shkreli continuing to exert control over Vyera Pharmaceuticals LLC from behind bars and discussing ideas on stopping generic versions of its lucrative drug, Daraprim, from hitting the market.
“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,” the report continues.
As the successful CEO of Turing Turing Pharmaceuticals and later Vyera — Shreki led the company to raise the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after obtaining exclusive rights to the decades-old drug in 2015.
The critical drug is used to treat a rare parasitic disease that strikes pregnant women, cancer patients, and AIDS patients.
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