Exec who jacked up price of a lifesaving drug is arrested

The images of Shkreli’s arrest – in a grey hoodie to boot – delighted some Twitter users.

Bloomberg, which first reported the story, said Shkreli was arrested in his Manhattan home and charged with illegally taking stock from Retrophin, a separate biotechnology firm he started in in 2011 and from which he was later ousted. To pay back investors Shkreli and an accomplice misappropriated 11 million in assets and sham investment deals.

Pharmaceutical company executive Martin Shkreli has been freed from custody after pleading not guilty to securities fraud charges in NY.

“Shkreli “ensnared investors through a web of lies and deceit” and ran Retrophin like a Ponzi scheme, where he used the assets of the new entity to pay off debts from the old entity”, said U.S. Attorney Robert Capers.

Turing and Shkreli’s attorneys did not return emails and calls seeking comment.

Retrophin filed a million civil lawsuit against Shkreli in August.

“Shkreli was the paradigm faithless servant”, the filing stated.

On Thursday, following Shkreli’s arrest, Retrophin issued a statement.

“Following his departure, the company authorized an independent investigation of Mr. Shkreli’s conduct, publicly disclosed its findings, and has fully cooperated with the government investigations into Mr. Shkreli”. He fought critics on Twitter and argued that the price hike was meant to fund further research and development of new drugs.

In a New York Times profile published this month, Shkreli was labeled the “bad boy of pharmaceuticals”. Bernie Sanders, also running for the Democrat nomination, refused to accept a campaign donation from him.

But he also made an unapologetic business-is-business argument for the price jump. She later called Shkreli’s suggested 10% price cut of Daraprim to be “insulting”.

“No”, Shkreli answered when a CNBC reporter asked him on air he if would cut the price in light of the backlash over the increase. That’s the ugly, dirty truth’.

And then perhaps Retrophin will market a pill to treat instantaneous heart growth and charge an exorbitant price for it.

Last week, it was revealed that Shkreli was the highest bidder for the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan’s most recent album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, at $2 million – and didn’t even give the highly anticipated tunes a listen.

It began in 2009 when Shkreli allegedly lied to eight people to get them to invest about $3 million in his hedge fund, Capers told a press conference.

Shkreli has kept up media appearances since then, suggesting he would cut Daraprim’s price, then avoiding doing so, then saying he would cut the price, but only for certain health providers.