NEW YORK -- State and federal authorities sued imprisoned drug entrepreneur Martin Shkreli on Monday over business tactics that helped make him the bad-boy face of profiteering in the pharmaceuticals industry, seeking to bar the so-called Pharma Bro from the industry for life.
Shkreli became infamous in 2015 for engineering a huge price increase for a long-existing medication for a sometimes life-threatening parasitic infection.
Monday's lawsuit, filed by the New York attorney general's office and the Federal Trade Commission, centers on actions his company took afterward that kept potential competitors at bay.
He and the company "held this critical drug hostage from patients and competitors as they illegally sought to maintain their monopoly," Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. "We won't allow 'Pharma Bros' to manipulate the market and line their pockets at the expense of vulnerable patients and the health care system."
Shkreli, 36, is serving a seven-year prison sentence for a securities-fraud conviction related to hedge funds he ran before getting into the pharmaceuticals industry in the early 2010s. His lawyers were preparing a response Monday.
Business on 01/28/2020