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U.S. NEWSSaturday 19 December 2015
Pharma’s bad boy: Livestreaming, rap-fan CEO faces charges
JENNIFER PELTZ Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager under fire for YouTube, ready anew for early 20s, Shkreli had his
Associated Press buying a pharmaceutical company and ratcheting up the price his self-created close-up. own hedge fund — and
NEW YORK (AP) — He’s the of a life-saving drug, is escorted by law enforcement agents in “Sorry I didn’t livestream had a reputation as an out-
enfant terrible of pharma- New York Thursday, Dec. 17, 2015, after being taken into cus- yesterday,” he said. “I had spoken short seller, or inves-
ceuticals, a 32-year-old tody following a securities probe. a lot going on.” tor who bets a stock’s price
CEO who unapologetically Combative, often crass will decline.
raised the price of the only (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) and willfully sophomoric, His approach earned
approved drug for a rare Shkreli has — so far — ap- the enmity of companies
disease from $13.50 to $750 tin Shkreli is a fraudster. He of $11 million to pay back peared to revel in being de- whose prospects he had
per pill. pleaded not guilty Thursday disgruntled hedge fund cli- scribed as a “pharma bro,” publicly impugned and
He’s a millionaire music afi- to charges that he looted ents. the “drug industry’s villain” doomed his first hedge
cionado who riled rap fans Retrophin, a pharmaceuti- By Friday, he was out on and far more unprintable fund when one bet proved
by buying the only known cal company he founded, $5 million bail and back on terms since his Turing Phar- wrong. Undeterred, Shkreli
copy of an album by the maceuticals jacked up the launched a new fund — it
Wu-Tang Clan. He’s an price of Daraprim. It treats also collapsed, prosecutors
unabashed self-promoter a rare parasitic disease say — and launched him-
who livestreams his daily that strikes pregnant wom- self in 2011 into the phar-
life and boasts he’s “the en, cancer patients and maceuticals business as
world’s most eligible bach- AIDS patients. (The criminal CEO of Retrophin, which
elor” and “the most suc- case doesn’t involve Turing also has drawn scrutiny
cessful Albanian to ever or Daraprim. Shkreli said on over sharp drug price in-
walk the face of this Earth.” his livestream Friday that he creases. The publicly trad-
And he’s an equally un- couldn’t discuss the allega- ed company ousted him
abashed provocateur who tions; instead, he thanked last year.
jousts online with his critics. supporters.) Some complaints about his
Now, prosecutors say Mar- He defends the decision as management were oddly
capitalism at work and says personal: An ex-employee
insurance and other pro- at one of his hedge funds
grams ensure that people has said in civil court pa-
who need Daraprim will ul- pers that Shkreli sent his wife
timately get it. and sons such messages
But it sparked outrage that as: “I hope to see you and
resounded from medical your four children home-
centers to the presidential less and will do whatever
campaign: Hillary Clinton I can to assure this.” The
termed it price-gouging, disclosure came in a suit —
while Donald Trump called against the ex-employee,
Shkreli “a spoiled brat.” whom Shkreli had accused
Shkreli grew up in Brooklyn, of theft. It was eventually
the son of immigrant par- settled.
ents who worked at janito- “I had two guys parked
rial jobs. He attended New outside of his house for six
York’s Hunter College High months” watching him,
School, a selective, rigor- Shkreli told the rap news
ous public school. He has site HipHopDX in a tough-
said he stopped going to talking, expletive-filled in-
class and didn’t graduate, terview published Wednes-
though he evidently bears day, the day before his
no ill will: His foundation re- arrest. A music fan since
cently gave the school $1 his days in a high school
million. He’s said he later rock band, Shkreli recently
earned a finance degree emerged as the $2 million
from the city’s Baruch Col- buyer of the sole copy of
lege. “I always wanted to what’s been called the
start a public company world’s rarest album: the
and make a lot of money,” Wu-Tang Clan’s “Once
Shkreli told Bloomberg Busi- Upon a Time in Shaolin,”
nessweek in 2014. which the group auctioned
A teenage internship at to only one person on the
a hedge fund got his foot condition that it not be put
in Wall Street’s door. By his to commercial use.q
