Price-Gouging Pharma Bro Under Investigation

Full title of the article is : Price-Gouging Pharma Bro Under Investigation for Corporate Looting, Fraud, and Stalking

RawStory

Martin Shkreli, the 32-year old hedge fund manager, acquired Daraprim (antiparasitic compound) earlier this week and the price went from $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet (there were threads on it, it's been all over the news)...

well today news comes out that Shkreli is under investigation Take that dirtbag!:

Shkreli founded the biotech company Retrophin, but he was “unceremoniously dumped” Sept. 30, 2014, as chief executive after the company’s board of directors concluded “Shkreli had committed stock-trading irregularities and other violations of securities rules,” reported Bloomberg. The company he founded in 2009 sued Shkreli last month for $65 million in damages, claiming the ex-hedge fund manager gave away Retrophin shares to friends and used the biotech firm’s assets to pay off personal debts and keep afloat his sinking investment firm, MSMB Capital Management. A filing made in November 2014 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed Shkreli pulled in nearly $3 million in gross proceeds as he continued selling company stock while simultaneously urging investors to buy into Retrophin — which the rapper-quoting then-CEO hyped on his Twitter account. Shkreli began plundering Retrophin after his hedge fund — which eventually collapsed — made a “disastrous” investment in Orexigen, reported FierceBiotech

He threatened investors:

Shkreli finally told investors he was dissolving the hedge fund to focus on Retrophin — and he offered to redeem their investments in cash or stock in his new company, the website reported. The lawsuit, however, alleges that Shkreli used a series of “extra-legal maneuvers” to essentially turn Retrophin into his personal bank — and now the company seeks every bit of money he made off the company. The suit points out that Shkreli was accused in December 2013 of threatening a former MSMB employee and his family on social media and in written letters. “I hope to see you and your four children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this,” the former employee Timothy Pierotti, claimed his old boss had written in a letter to his wife.

"I hope to see you and your children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this"? Wow... this guy is a poor excuse for a human being.

Shkreli has defended his decision to hike the price of his latest acquisition, Daraprim, by 5,500 percent — saying the increase was necessary to protect his investment and still kept the drug “underpriced” on the current market.Shkreli insulted reporters who questioned the price hike, calling one a “moron” and suggesting the details were too complicated for the average person to understand.

I hope this guy gets what's coming to him. He sounds as bad as most of the politicians... You SUCK Shkreli. My 2 cents.

a reply to: FamCore

He's simultaneously creating a monopoly on the Medication and jacking up the cost for no good reason other than his own greed. Niiiiice.

This is not the kind of person who should be allowed to sell medicine, and who makes an excellent case for regulation. It also makes me fervently wish for a serious karmic smack down.

If anyone was worthy of a "Droning"

a reply to: AboveBoard

Not to mention he's probably giving others in the biotech industry ideas on how they can reap insane profits by buying the rights to certain products and jacking up the price at their will.


The things this guy said about hoping that family becomes homeless, making threats and taunting people in social media just demonstrate what a gem this guy really is.

a reply to: FamCore



This guy gives off vibes as slimy as pond scum. He reminds me of a Marvel Comic super villain. As a matter of fact, he appears to me to be suffering from some kind of brain parasite himself.

a reply to: windword

Not even Loki would be that mean.

Meh. He's a smug and entitled one isn't he? And he's probably one who looks down on the poor and their "entitlements." How dare the peasants want bread and medicine!!!!

Yuck.

a reply to: FamCore

May I pile on? Just because... well... he sooooooo deserves it!!!

These 37 tweets show how the pharma CEO gouging AIDS patients is even worse than you think

So this a hole couldn't keep another of his "business" afloat, so he jacks the price of the medicine he now owns astronomically.

Somehow I would guess this business would have failed as well. (deservedly so)

He deserves to lose everything. Doesn't sound like it will take long.

If there is any karma in this world... This man will know real need before he draws his last breath.

Disgusting individual doesn't even come close to the ballpark of what this guy is.

originally posted by: Boadicea
a reply to: FamCore

May I pile on? Just because... well... he sooooooo deserves it!!!

These 37 tweets show how the pharma CEO gouging AIDS patients is even worse than you think

It's appalling how many people were applauding him on there, what planet are these people from? seriously!????

This guys picture is next to the definition of 'Sociopath' in the dictionary.

I can understand making excessive profits on luxury automobiles or high-end furnishings, but price gouging on something people actually NEED is simply evil.

a reply to: FamCore

This nonhuman entity has created a new word to be used to define those a holes who flip the finger at the needy...

"Shkreli"

Coming soon to the Oxford dictionary.

Snopes has more info and links... LINK

The Snopes article doesn't give a final conclusion other than to say his "reasons" for the price increase were "conflicting" between interviews.

On CBS he claims it is to better develop a "new and improved drug" whereas the other, Bloomberg, interview, he claims it is for the sake of his "investors."

He's been sued multiple times by another company... It gets better and better!!

- AB

a reply to: AboveBoard

If anything, the "price hike as a result of trying to improve this drug" is a total lie because Shkreli even said he needed to save another one of his biotech companies and this move was in an effort to keep the other company afloat.

It looks like Daraprim was first released as an anti-malarial in 1952ish. I don't think they need to make improvements on this antiparasitic medicine - with that "price hike" they could justify researching an entirely new drug. total bs

originally posted by: FamCore
a reply to: AboveBoard

If anything, the "price hike as a result of trying to improve this drug" is a total lie because Shkreli even said he needed to save another one of his biotech companies and this move was in an effort to keep the other company afloat.

It looks like Daraprim was first released as an anti-malarial in 1952ish. I don't think they need to make improvements on this antiparasitic medicine - with that "price hike" they could justify researching an entirely new drug. total bs

In one of his interviews he is caught.

He explains that "well, this is a life-saving drug!, If you look at the cost of other life saving drugs like cancer treatments, the price we put on it makes sense since it can save someone's life" or something similar.

He is a POS.

a reply to: infolurker

Right. He was saying that it only costs $50K to get well, now, from his drug, comparing the cost of other life saving drugs. But, he fails to realize, or say, is that many of people using Daraprimj are already on other life saving drugs, like HIV medication and cancer treatments, because of their already weakened immune system.

This guy's character is less than a maggot ridden piece of goat excrement's character!

The sad part is if he had done the raising of the price incrementally he would probably never been investigated. I must say he reminds me of some of the ATSers that were defending him in the other thread!

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) drew Turing into an already ongoing congressional investigation into recent drug price increases, sending a letter on Monday asking for information about total gross revenues from sales of Daraprim; prices paid for all sales; the prices in foreign markets; and the identity of company official(s) responsible for setting the price.

“The enormous, overnight price increase for Daraprim is just the latest in a long list of skyrocketing price increases for certain critical medications,” Sanders and Cummings said. “Americans should not have to live in fear that they will die or go bankrupt because they cannot afford to take the life-saving medication they need.”

source

I don't understand why we as a society aren't killing these people.
Why aren't we storming into their offices and throwing them out their windows
to plummet to their deaths. There are so many of these only this one likes
media attention is all. I would donate to the defense of any citizen that demonstrated
love for humanity by removing this cancer from our collective conscious.

-Toy the Bear

In simpler times people like this hedge fund manager would be given the Breaking Wheel.

Alas, such a practice is frowned upon now.

Derek

I hope this asshole dies a terrible, terrible death.