“Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli was ordered to pay $64.6 million in profits and was banned for life from the pharmaceutical industry for an infamous episode several years ago in which his company purchased an old, lifesaving medicine and then boosted the price by 4,000% overnight.
The decision follows a trial last month in which Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager who quickly became reviled for his smug responses to an outraged public, was accused by a group of federal and state authorities for stifling competition. Also last month, his former company settled the same charges by agreeing to pay $40 million, and his former business partner, Kevin Mulleady, was banned from the industry for seven years.
“Shkreli was the prime mover in this anticompetitive scheme. It was his brainchild and he drove it each step of the way,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote in a 135-page order. She noted an economics expert who testified on behalf of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission calculated the company would have generated $67.6 million less in sales had the price of the drug not been raised as it had.
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