Page 386 - The Case Lab Book

embarrassing buzzword that means nothing,” Shkreli declared. By early
April the company’s stock had plummeted 30 percent, to about $2.

Shkreli took Retrophin public in late 2012 by means of a “reverse merger”

with an existing shell company called Desert Gateway.

However, critics argued that Shkreli was intelligent but too immature and

unfocused for the job of CEO.

Shkreli, however, was in a hurry. Through Retrophin he made a $63 million
purchase in February of Manchester Pharmaceuticals which helps illustrate

Shkreli’s strategy of buying the rights to obsolete drugs and repurposing
them as treatments for rare illnesses.

Manchester’s main asset is Chenodal, an FDA-approved drug to treat
gallstones that hadn’t caught on commercially. Chenodal, or
chenodeoxycholic acid, can also be used to treat a rare disease called

CTX, or cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis, which, if unaddressed, can
cause brain damage and early death. The FDA has granted Chenodal
orphan drug status for CTX patients, meaning that for a period of years, its

owner receives valuable financial incentives to proceed.

Shkreli – Thiola

Retrophin acquired the rights to sell Thiola, which is used to treat
cystinuria.

Sufferers of cystinrula may take the drug for life, starting in early childhood,
in an effort to manage the rare and incurable disease that afflicts about
20,000 patients in the United States and which causes sufferers' bodies to

constantly create kidney stones, causing excruciating pain, severe organ
damage and in some cases, death.
Thiola was approved to treat cystinuria by the US Food and Drug

Administration (FDA) in 1988 and was acquired by Retrophin in May 2014.