New lawyer silences bad-boy ex-pharma CEO Martin Shkreli

Shkreli, who has become the poster child of pharmaceutical-industry greed after hiking the price of an anti-infection drug by mor…

The House committee will hold a hearing on the topic on Thursday.

Both companies now face federal investigations over the price spikes – and Shkreli is scheduled to attend a hearing Thursday.

But the company also warned in an internal memo of a possible backlash from advocates for HIV patients. He said the money from the price increase would go to research on new drugs, and Turing is doing some such research. He had gained notoriety before his indictment when Turing Pharmaceuticals, which he headed at the time, increased the price of a drug used to treat a unsafe parasitic infection from $13.50 to $750. “We’ve heard from hospitals, as well as from Congress, that we set the price for these two drugs too high, ” it said.

Benjamin Brafman, Shkreli’s new defense attorney – who represented rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs when he faced gun and bribery charges in 2001, along with former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn – did not respond to the release of the memos and Cummings’ conclusions, but said in a statement that Shkreli would be “fully exonerated” of the securities fraud charges.

“So 5,000 paying bottles at the new price is $375,000,000 – nearly all of it is profit and I think we will get three years of that or more, ‘ Shkreli wrote in the e-mail to someone the congressional staff identified only as an outside contact”.

“THE ‘most hated man in America” Martin Shkreli bragged in an e-mail that hiking the price of a lifesaving drug would be a “very handsome investment”, according to a memo released by United States politicians Tuesday. He insisted that if called to appear, he would invoke the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and remain silent.

Also appearing before the lawmakers were Turing’s chief commercial officer and the interim CEO of Canada’s largest drugmaker, Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

The Democrat said in a statement that the documents show “that many drug companies are lining their pockets at the expense of some of the most vulnerable families in our nation”. Turing, meanwhile, increased the price of pyrimethamine (Daraprim), which it had acquired in 2015.

Schiller said in written testimony that Valeant has tried to keep drugs affordable through volume-based rebates and a partnership with Walgreens (WBA.O).

Turing said it funds a patient assistance program “that offers Daraprim free of charge to patients with incomes at or below 500 percent of the poverty level, provides co-pay support to insured patients, funds a bridge program to offer a supply of Daraprim to commercially insured patients at no charge during delays in coverage and contributes to an independent charity that provides patients financial support to cover the cost of treatment”.