Martin Shkreli resigns as Turing CEO after securities fraud arrest

Martin Shkreli, the “most hated man in America” and a “pharma bro” known for raising drug prices by almost 5,000 percent and spending $2 million on a Wu-Tang Clan album, resigned from Turing Pharmaceuticals on Friday.

Shkreli’s exit comes one day after Turing issued a short statement about the charges against him, saying on Thursday, “The legal matters concerning the founder and CEO Martin Shkreli are personal and have no bearing on Turing Pharmaceuticals”.

Ron Tilles, Turing’s chairman, was named interim CEO, the company said Friday.

Shkreli was charged by federal prosecutors Thursday with using assets from a pharmaceutical company he previously headed, Retrophin Inc, to pay off debts after his hedge fund lost millions of dollars. Shkreli, 32, was arrested as he was accused of repeatedly losing money for investors and lying to them about the same.

“Glad to be home”, Shkreli tweeted to his Twitter followers Thursday night. The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against Shkreli.

However, the Human Rights Campaign, the largest USA civil rights group for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, urged Tilles to cut the cost of the Daraprim to its earlier price. Nearly overnight, Shkreli became the poster boy for pharmaceutical industry greed – a bad-boy image he embraced on social media, the press and during live-streaming video episodes from his NY apartment.

Tilles said in a Turing statement that the company is committed to providing access to its commercial products, including Daraprim, an anti-infective drug to treat toxoplasmosis that is often taken by people with AIDS.

Shkreli was in the headlines yesterday as well after he revealed in an unsettling interview with HipHopDX, his plans for trying to bail out Bobby Shmurda, referring to him as “New York’s best chance for rap since 50 Cent”. The company said it had a program to reduce patient co-pays in place and would expand its distribution partnerships. At the time of Turing’s statement, Shkreli remained the CEO of KaloBios, a public biopharmaceutical company he joined last month.