The former pharmaceutical executive known for raising the price of an old drug and for violating antitrust law will be banned from the drug industry for life.
Mr. Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding investors in two hedge funds. The drug pricing saga elevated him to notoriety, but his conviction is unrelated to that. He is expected to be released later this year.
In 2015, Mr. Shkreli, then a pharmaceutical entrepreneur in his early 30s, acquired a decades-old drug known as Daraprim, which is used to treat a life-threatening parasitic infection, and raised its price to $750 a tablet, up from The incident alarmed politicians and the public, who were already worried about rising drug prices and the role that pharmaceutical companies can play in making medicines unaffordable.
Most pharmaceutical executives raise drug prices slowly and with reassurances about patient access, but Mr. Shkreli seemed unrepentant. He became known as a "pharma bro" when he faced criticism over the drug price increase.
The US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on Friday that Mr. Shkreli tried to maintain a monopoly over the drug. The attorneys general of seven states, including New York, brought the lawsuit.
The judge found that Mr. Shkreli's former company brought in over $60 million in excess profits from its sales of the drug.
The court found that Mr. Shkreli changed the way Vyera was distributed and impeded competition in the generic market. The New York attorney general's office said in a news release that consumers were harmed by higher prices and fewer options for the drug, forcing many patients and physicians to make difficult and risky decisions for the treatment of life-threatening diseases.
Lawyers for Mr. Shkreli didn't return a request for comment on Friday.
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