Shkreli resigns as Turing CEO after securities fraud arrest

Shkreli also sits on Turing’s board along with Chairman Ron Tilles, who formerly worked at Retrophin, and one other member, Walter C. Blum, according to the company’s website.

Turing representatives didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment on Tilles’ role at Retrophin, and the company’s voicemail inbox was full on Friday afternoon.

Former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli has the Internet ablaze after hiking the price of the drug that’s been on the market for decades.

“Turing assures health-care providers and patients that Daraprim remains available and is unaffected by these events”, the company said in the e-mailed statement.

Shkreli’s Turing Pharmaceuticals caused global outrage in September after it hiked the price of a Daraprim, a 70-year-old drug used by cancer and Aids patients, by 5,000% overnight.

Rising pharmaceutical prices has become a topic in the upcoming US presidential race. “However, we are still waiting to see proof of Mr. Shkreli’s promise to reduce the price of this needed generic drug”.

Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at a press conference yesterday, ‘Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company’.

Martin Shkreli founded Retrophin Inc in 2011 to create treatments for rare diseases. Shkreli was charged Thursday with securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and wire fraud conspiracy. Photos of him, wearing a gray hoodie as he was escorted by authorities, spread on the Internet like wildfire, generating social media posts celebrating his apparent fall.

The charges against Shkreli, 32, center on his behavior at several ventures he founded before he founded Turing: two hedge funds, and a biopharmaceutical company that filed a lawsuit against him this summer.

Mr Shkreli denied the charges in court and was released on bail of $5m.

He tweeted Thursday night that he was “glad to be home”. “At the same time, I am very excited about the opportunity to guide Turing Pharmaceuticals forward”.

Turing Pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shekreli was arrested on December 17, 2015 for alleged securities fraud.