For the last two months, Martin Shkreli has been a free man, sort of. After serving four years of a seven year sentence for securities fraud, the “pharma bro” headed for life at a halfway house (after hitting up Cracker Barrel, of course). He’s already been busy. Despite being banned for life from the pharmaceutical industry, he announced on Monday that he was launching a pharma-adjacent company. And it’s already got authorities feeling suspicious.
As per The Daily Beast, two separate attorney generals’ offices have started looking into Druglike, Shkreli’s latest business venture. What is Druglike? As per its press release, it’s a “drug discovery project” that seeks to “remove barriers to early-stage drug discovery, increase innovation and allow a broader group of contributors to share the rewards.” A disclaimer on the press release stressed that it was “not a pharmaceutical company.” Still, the goal is to “disrupt the economics of the drug business.”
It’s all kind of vague at this point, but it’s already got authorities looking askance. Both the New York and North Carolina attorney generals’ offices are looking into the matter. A spokesperson for the latter — Josh Stein, who was one of the AGs who sued Shkreli — said the office as “concerned about this development and will be taking a closer look.”
Shkreli first came to infamy when he jacked up the price of an AIDS drug by at least 5000% overnight. He later followed that up by paying $2 million for a Wu-Tang Clan record, then taunted them online. Late last year, a former Bloomberg journalist revealed the truly surreal story about how she left her job and her husband for the still-jailed Shkreli, who cut her off the second he learned she was blabbing about their relationship to the press. But perhaps he’s just getting wound up.
(Via The Daily Beast)