Martin Shkreli fired from drug firm KaloBios following arrest

Martin Shkreli, the embattled health care businessman, has been let go by KaloBios Pharmaceuticals – one of the companies he had headed.

The increase propelled Shkreli to the media spotlight: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pilloried him for gouging, and he was pulled into congressional drug pricing investigations.

However, following release on a $5 million bail, Shkreli, who has, since September, been called a “morally bankrupt sociopath” and “the most hated man in America“, among other things, rejected the allegations, calling them “baseless and without merit”.

Twitter account of the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals Martin Shkreli aka pharma bro has been hacked by an unknown hacker who then published a series of tweets on his account.

Robert Capers, U.S. attorney of the eastern district of NY, said the charges brought against Shkreli were “a securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit, and greed”, adding that he “essentially ran his companies like Ponzi schemes, where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the previous company”.

After Shkreli disclosed in November that he had taken a large stake in the struggling drug firm, KaloBios shares soared. It is the only approved drug for treating a life-threatening parasitic infection given to people with weakened immune systems.

Another New York nonprofit, anti-poverty group Community Solutions, said Friday that it will give back $15,000 it received from Mr. Shkreli in January, Reuters reports.

His arrest was not related to the dramatic price hike for Daraprim. In addition, Mr. Shkreli said he had been targeted by regulars for his much-criticized drug-price hikes and over-the-top public persona.

Shkreli lost control of his Twitter account to hackers on Sunday, hours after he took to the microblogging service to plead his innocence, said his spokesman, Craig Stevens. “Willing to donate hundreds of thousands to charities before I got to prison…” read another.

KaloBios trading has been halted since Thursday. He was later ousted from the company, where he’d been CEO, and sued by its board.

Since his arrest on December 17, Shkreli has formally resigned from his position as the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals and has also been fired from his position as CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals.

It has been attempting to develop drugs to treat cancer and leukemia.