FTC files motion seeking for 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli to be held in contempt
The FTC filed the motion in federal court in New York
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is seeking in a motion for a court to hold in contempt Martin Shkreli, accusing him of not cooperating with a probe into whether he broke his lifetime pharmaceutical industry ban.
The FTC alleged the so-called "Pharma Bro" has "failed to comply with their requests that he turn over documents and sit for an interview" amid the agency’s investigation, it said Friday in a press release. The probe was looking into Shkreli's compliance with the pharmaceutical industry lifetime ban with regard to his new company, Druglike, Inc.
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The FTC filed the motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Pharmaceutical chief Martin Shkreli speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 4, 2016, during the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on his former company's decision to raise the price of a lifesaving medicine. (AP Ph …
Druglike, co-founded by Shkreli, was announced in July. It called itself as a "decentralized science drug discovery Web3 platform" and said it was a "blockchain/Web3 software company and not a pharmaceutical company" in a press release.
Shkreli has been prohibited from participating "directly or indirectly" in the pharmaceutical industry since early 2022, according to a Friday court filing from the FTC and a handful of states.
In addition to the lifetime ban, Shkreli was required to pay tens of millions of dollars, something the FTC claimed in a filing he has not done. (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo / Reuters Photos)
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That judgment came after a federal court found he had violated both federal and state laws against anti-competitive behavior in connection to the drug Daraprim. He was in prison at the time for securities fraud in a separate case and received an early release last year.
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In 2022, the court found Shkreli "orchestrated an illegal anti-competitve scheme to perpetuate a monopoly" on the drug Daraprim, the price for which he and the company Vyera infamously hiked up in 2015, the FTC said. Daraprim is used for treating the parasite-caused infection taxoplasmosis, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
In addition to the lifetime ban, Shkreli was required to pay tens of millions of dollars, something the FTC claimed in a filing he has not done.
The FTC, which accused Shkreli of having "flouted the Court’s Order and Plaintiff’s efforts to monitor and assess" his compliance, is also asking the judge to order Shkreli to submit a compliance report, give access to requested documents and do an interview within certain time frames, according to a filing.
An attorney for Shkreli declined to comment.