PHARMA BRO, PHARMA NO

Martin Shkreli Is Still Banned for Life From Working in the Drug Industry

The former pharmaceutical executive served almost seven years behind bars for defrauding his investors. He was released in 2022.

Martin Shkreli, the “pharma bro” who first drew fierce criticism for hiking the price of a lifesaving AIDS drug by 4000 percent in 2015, will remain barred from working in the pharmaceutical industry after an appellate court upheld his lifetime ban. The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel came almost exactly two years after Shkreli was first hit with the ban, handed down by a federal court in response to a civil lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission and seven states. Shkreli, then behind bars after being convicted of securities fraud in a separate criminal case, argued that the lifetime ban was excessive. (He was released from prison several months later in May 2022.) The FTC disagreed, asking a federal judge in July to hold Shkreli in contempt for allegedly flouting an attempt to determine whether he’d already violated the ban. The appeals panel found on Tuesday that the ban was a reasonable measure to ensure the protection of the public. “Given Shkreli’s pattern of past misconduct, the obvious likelihood of its recurrence, and the life-threatening nature of its results, we are persuaded that the district court’s determination as to the proper scope of the injunction was well within its discretion,” its ruling said.