The infamous "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli should be held in contempt for opening another drug company, the Federal Trade Commission urged a federal judge Jan. 20.
Eight years ago, Mr. Shkreli's company Turing Pharmaceuticals bought Daraprim (pyrimethamine), a drug used to treat a parasitic infection, and hiked the tablet's price from $17.50 to $750 overnight. In 2017, he was convicted on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiring. He served prison time until 2022 for defrauding investors for two hedge funds, was ordered to pay $64.6 million and has a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry.
In January 2022, a district court called his actions "egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running and ultimately dangerous."
A federal court also banned him from serving as an executive or director at a public company, but he has violated this order by forming and operating a new company called Druglike, the FTC said.
Mr. Shkreli and others have not complied with the FTC's requests to submit documents and be interviewed concerning the new company, according to a court document filed Jan. 20.
"Druglike purports to revolutionize early-stage drug discovery through a decentralized computing network," according to an FTC news release.