Shkreli resigns as Turing CEO after arrest

Martin Shkreli, the medical entrepreneur widely criticized for ordering large drug price hikes, resigned Friday as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, one day after federal authorities charged him in an unrelated securities fraud scheme.

Tilles also thanked Shkreli “for helping us build Turing Pharmaceuticals into the dynamic research-focused company it is today”, a reference to Shkreli’s after-the-fact claim that he needed to raise Daraprim’s price so much to fund research on other drugs.

As alleged in the indictment, Shkreli essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme, where he used each subsequent company to pay off the defrauded investors in the prior company.

Shkreli has been under investigation for securities fraud related to hedge fund MSMB Capital Management and biopharmaceutical company Retrophin Inc.

That move drew the opprobrium of Congress, doctors and presidential candidates.

In their conversation, which starts a little less than four hours into the recorded video, Mr. Shkreli told her that he was planning to dominate the rap industry, have Hunter renamed for himself and bail a rapper out of jail.

Bloomberg and Reuters reported that Shkreli was arrested Thursday at his home in NY.

Shkreli said the company would cut the price of Daraprim.

Media reports began circulating Friday morning that the company was looking to replace Shkreli, who then announced his resignation. FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Diego Rodriguez while talking about the charges against him said, “describe a securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit, and greed”.

Shkreli and Turing had first come under the public microscope earlier this fall for raising the price Daraprim, its drug used to fight parasitic infections in cancer and H.I.V. patients, by more than 5,000 percent overnight.

By the time Shkreli’s tumultuous Thursday was over, he was already back on Twitter. KaloBios, which planned to shut down operations, named Shkreli its CEO on November 20, after he and a consortium of investors bought about 70 per cent of the company’s outstanding shares. Wu Tang Clan’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” was a made in 2013, but only a single copy was produced.