Martin Shkreli, nicknamed the ‘Pharma Bro,’ was released from prison early Wednesday morning and sent to a halfway house in New York.
Shkreli first came to national prominence in 2015 as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, (now Vyera Pharmaceuticals), which raised the list price of Daraprim, a life-saving drug used to treat AIDS and cancer, from $13.50 to $750 per tablet.
The ensuing price-hike scandal made Shkreli into a pariah for the pharmaceutical industry and resulted in him being dubbed “the most hated man in America.”
Shkreli was convicted by a jury in 2017 on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2018. Shkreli was scheduled for release from FCI Allenwood Low in mid-September. He had previously requested an early release during the COVID-19 pandemic but was denied multiple times.
In January 2020, the Federal Trade Commission and seven states filed a complaint against Shkreli and Vyera related to an anticompetitive price scheme involving Daraprim.
“Daraprim is a lifesaving drug for vulnerable patients,” Gail Levine, then-Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition at FTC, said in a statement. “Vyera kept the price of Daraprim astronomically high by illegally boxing out the competition.”
In January 2022, Shkreli received a $64 million fine and a lifetime ban from the industry.
For years, Shkreli has been the subject of extensive media coverage. A documentary released last year detailed Shkreli’s legal saga and a recent episode of the TNT series “Rich and Shameless” highlighted his feud with the Wu-Tang Clan.
