Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Shkreli Arrested On Securities Fraud Charges Related To Work At Previous Company

The Hill: Price-gouging CEO indicted on securities fraud charges
“…Martin Shkreli was charged [by federal authorities] in a seven-count indictment unrelated to his tenure as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, where he raised the price of toxoplasmosis drug Daraprim to $750 per pill, up from $13.50, earlier this year. The charges stem from his work at another drug company, Retrophin, which he headed from 2012 to 2014…” (Richardson, 12/17).

New York Times: Drug CEO Martin Shkreli Arrested on Fraud Charges
“…Mr. Shkreli has emerged as a symbol of pharmaceutical greed for acquiring a decades-old drug used to treat an infection that can be devastating for babies and people with AIDS and, overnight, raising the price to $750 a pill from $13.50. His only mistake, he later conceded, was not raising the price more…” (Creswell et al., 12/17).

New York Times: Martin Shkreli’s Arrest Gives Drug Makers Cover
“…Most drug companies do not increase prices fiftyfold overnight, as Mr. Shkreli did. But they often increase prices 10 percent or more a year, far faster than inflation. And those 10 percent increases — on drugs for common diseases like diabetes, high cholesterol, and cancer — have a far bigger impact on health care spending than the 5,000 percent increase on Turing’s drug, Daraprim, which might be used by about 2,000 people a year facing possible brain damage from a parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis…” (Pollack, 12/17).

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