Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Lashes Out At Second Circuit Because Consequences Are Hard

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(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty)

Remember “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli? He rose to infamy in the mid-2010s for raising the price of the lifesaving drug Daraprim by 4,000% overnight — plus there was the whole securities fraud thing, that took down a Biglaw partner with him. Oh, and disrespecting Wu-Tang.

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Anyway, in 2020, Shkreli was sued by New York State Attorney General Letitia James, the Federal Trade Commission, and seven individual states for that whole scheme to raise the price of a lifesaving drug thing. The trial court found Shkreli utilized monopoly power — including while he was in jail for securities fraud —  in furtherance of his illegal scheme to raise the price of Daraprim and ordered Shkreli to disgorge $64.6 million in profits and banned him from the pharmaceutical industry for life. Southern District of New York judge Denise Cote wrote, “Without a lifetime ban, there is a real danger that Shkreli will engage in anticompetitive conduct within the pharmaceutical industry again.”

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Harsh stuff for sure. And Shkreli appealed to the Second Circuit. There he did not find a sympathetic audience. A unanimous panel of Barrington D. Parker Jr., Myrna Pérez, and Sarah A.L. Merriam rejected his arguments and upheld the order to pay the $64.6 million and the lifetime ban from pharma.

None of that makes Shkreli a happy camper, so like many a manchild he’s taken to X, née Twitter, to complain.

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Thanks to the @FTC, and now the 2nd Circuit, I am the first inividual person in the history of the USA to be sued under the Sherman Act Section 2 (130 year old law) as a monopolist.

Not Gates, Zuckerberg, Rockefeller, but little old me.

Even if you believe the monopolist…

— Martin Shkreli (e/acc) (@wagieeacc) January 23, 2024

Of course, like so much water off a duck’s back this will mean nothing to the Second Circuit. However, it isn’t the last a court will hear about the decision. James cited Shkreli’s industry-wide ban in support of the ban from the real estate industry her office is seeking in the civil fraud trial of Donald Trump.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].

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Courts, Martin Shkreli, Second Circuit, Social Media