NEW YORK (Reuters) - Martin Shkreli, known for once hiking the price of a life-saving drug more than 4,000%, cannot return to the pharmaceutical industry after a federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld his lifetime ban.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a lower court judge acted properly in imposing the ban and ordering Shkreli to repay $64.6 million because of his antitrust violations.

The case had been brought by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), joined by New York, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Shkreli, 40, became notorious and gained the sobriquet “Pharma Bro” when, as chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals in 2015, he raised the price of the newly-acquired antiparasitic drug Daraprim overnight to $750 per tablet from $17.50.

  • @Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    235 months ago

    I remember him saying that he increased the price to make money from insurance companies, and that it was written or disclaimed that if you couldn’t afford the new price of the pills, you could apply directly to the company and they were instructed to give out the pills to you for free.

    It was some line he spoutrd off while being marched somewhere to court or something and definitely sounded like b*******, but does anybody know anything about that?

    • Flying Squid
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      205 months ago

      If it was written or disclaimed, it was somewhere in the middle of a 20 page block of legalese where no patient would ever find it.

      • @Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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        95 months ago

        Definitely, I’m just curious if there was anything to it at all or if he was just screaming it as a PR stunt as he was led away