Wednesday 18 May 2022 07:19 PM 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli is released from prison early trends now
11
View
comments
'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli, 39, has been released from his prison sentence early on Wednesday - serving five years of a seven-year stretch behind bars.
His attorney Ben Brafman, said in a statement to the New York Post: 'I am pleased to report that Martin Shkreli has been released from Allenwood prison and transferred to a BOP halfway house after completing all programs that allowed for his prison sentence to be shortened.'
Shkreli, who once led Vyera Pharmaceuticals, was sentenced to prison in 2018 for defrauding investors by lying to them about the performance of two hedge funds he ran, withdrawing more money from those funds than he was entitled to get, and defrauding investors in a drug company, Retrophin, by hiding his ownership of some of its stock.
In 2015, he became infamous for suddenly raising the price of the drug Daraprim in 2015 by 5,000 percent - from $13.50 a pill to $750. The drug treats toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that threatens people with weakened immune systems.
He was barred from ever working in the pharmaceutical industry again as a result of his fraud case. In addition, he still has to pay nearly $65million to seven states - New York, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia - that sued him for antitrust violations.
The states alleged in their case that his company hiked the price of Daraprim and illegally created 'a web of anticompetitive restrictions' to prevent other companies from creating cheaper generic versions. Among other things, they alleged, Vyera blocked access to a key ingredient for the medication and to data the companies would want to evaluate the drug´s market potential.
In a 130-page decision, Cote faulted Shkreli for creating two companies that were designed to monopolize drugs so he could profit 'on the backs' of patients, doctors and distributors.
'Shkreli was no side player in, or a 'remote, unrelated' beneficiary of Vyera's
