When Shkreli was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals — later Vyera — the company jacked up the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after obtaining exclusive rights to the decades-old drug in 2015.
Daraprim treats a rare parasitic disease that strikes pregnant women, cancer patients and AIDS patients. Shkreli defended the decision as capitalism at work even as the move sparked outrage from all quarters.
Shkreli resigned as Turing’s CEO in 2015, a day after he was arrested on securities fraud charges related to hedge funds he ran before getting into the pharmaceuticals industry.
James announced the ruling against Shkreli on Friday with two Twitter posts, the first one of which paraphrased the Wu-Tang Clan to point out that “the powerful don’t get to make their own rules, despite Shkreli thinking cash rules everything around him.”
The Wu-Tang references were especially pointed, considering that Shkreli was once the sole owner of the group’s album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which he purchased in 2015 for $2 million.
Source: This post first appeared on https://www.huffpost.com
