Martin Shkreli resigns as Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO day after securities fraud arrest

Shkreli was replaced by Turing Chairman Ron Tilles, who said in a statement that the company was committed to continuing to make its flagship drug, Daraprim, which is used to treat an infection called toxoplasmosis in AIDS patients.

Tilles has worked at numerous private equity and venture capital firms in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries over the last two decades.

Shkreli founded Turing and drew widespread condemnation for acquiring an anti-parasitic drug and hiking its price from $13.50 a pill to $750.

Shares of Shkreli’s other pharmaceutical company, KaloBios Inc, fell by 53 percent on news of the arrest on Thursday before trading was halted for the day.

Prosecutors said that between 2009-14, Shkreli lost some of his hedge fund investors’ money through bad trades.

Last month, Shkreli was named chairman and CEO of KaloBios Pharmaceuticals after buying a majority stake in the struggling cancer drug developer.

The Internet reacted to the CEO’s arrest with unfettered glee, along with a few jokes about how his price gouging technique might go over in prison.

The charges against Shkreli are related to his tenure as a manager of a hedge fund before he founded Turing. He did so this fall, shortly after Turing acquired rights to sell the pill in the USA, paying another company $55 million for it. “As charged, Martin Shkreli targeted investors and retained their business by making several misrepresentations and omissions about key facts of the funds he managed”, Capers said.

“No seizure warrant at the arrest of Martin Shkreli… which means we didn’t seize the Wu-Tang Clan album”, reads a statement released via the organisation’s Twitter.com page.

Rising drug costs were undoubtedly destined to become a political issue, but it is also very likely that Shkreli’s high-profile celebration of Daraprin’s overnight surge in profit margin attracted even more critical attention. “Thanks for the support”. Here’s hoping his CEO status at KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc gets the send-off it deserves as well.

A criminal lawyer representing Turing Pharmaceuticals chief Martin Shkreli has informed his client that he is raising his hourly fees by 5,000 per cent. Shkreli is a free man after he was arrested and pleaded not guilty Thursday.