Martin Shkreli
Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager who bought the drug company that produced Daraprim, a life-saving AIDS medication, and jacked up the price of the drug from $13.50 per pill to $750, has been arrested on securities fraud charges.
The charges are unrelated to the manipulation of drug prices, but are instead tied to a former drug firm he headed and his former hedge fund. Federal investigators charged him with taking company stock and using proceeds to pay off unrelated personal debts, calling what he did a shell game. Retrophin filed a complaint with the federal government claiming Shkreli cost them $7 million, practically bankrupting the company.
The government charges he took funds from Retrophin to pay off investors in the hedge fund who had lost money. Shkreli denies the charges.
After Shkreli raised the price of Daraprim, which treats toxoplasmosis, by 5,000 percent, he promised to cut the increase in half. Then he reneged. When Hillary Clinton tried to intervene, he dismissed her attempts with a tweet: “Lol,” he wrote.
While most people’s gaydar went up when Shkreli bought the company that produces Daraprim, Shkreli claims he is not gay. Good.
