By Erik Larson and Sebastian Tong
Published On 14 Jan 2022
Source: Aljazeera
Photo Source: Unsplash, Ben Collins
Martin Shkreli was also ordered to pay $64m in damages for monopolizing the market for a life-saving drug.
Martin Shkreli is already serving a seven-year sentence in the United States for securities fraud committed while running two hedge funds, though the same drug - Daraprim - is at the center of both cases. Martin Shkreli, the convicted “Pharma Bro” who was brought down by a 2015 drug-pricing scandal, was ordered to pay $64 million in damages for monopolizing the market for a life-saving drug.
Shkreli, the former chief executive officer of Vyera Pharmaceuticals LLC, was also banned for life from the pharmaceutical industry in the antitrust ruling Friday by U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan. New York Attorney General Letitia James, who filed the suit with six other states and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, said in a statement that Shkreli was motivated by “envy” and “greed” when he decided to “illegally jack up the price of a life-saving drug as Americans’ lives hung in the balance.” Shkreli is already serving a seven-year sentence for securities fraud committed while running two hedge funds, though the same drug – Daraprim – is at the center of both cases. Vyera, then known as Turing Pharmaceuticals, was launched by Shkreli in 2015. That’s when he acquired Daraprim, a once-affordable anti-infective used to treat a sometimes-deadly parasitic infection, from the only existing supplier. Shkreli then raised the price from $17.50 to $750 per tablet.
Cote found that Shkreli made illegal agreements with generic drug makers to delay introduction of cheaper versions of the drug after he jacked up the price.
“Shkreli does not dispute that it was his intention to impede generic pharmaceutical companies from launching competitive products that would threaten the price of Daraprim,” the judge wrote. “The plaintiffs have shown that the restraints Vyera implemented succeeded in doing just that.”
Last month, Vyera and another former chief executive officer, Kevin Mulleady, agreed to pay as much as $40 million to resolve their involvement in the federal antitrust lawsuit filed by New York and other states.
(Updates with detail from the litigation)
How could such practices impact your health? How could such practices impact your health insurance? Why? What laws or protections would you like to see developed to protect against such practices?
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