Shkreli’s infamous 4,000% price hike gets him a lifetime pharma ban

Enlarge of Martin Shkreli.

A federal court on Friday banned convicted fraudster Martin Shkreli from ever working in the pharmaceutical industry again and ordered him to pay back $64.6 million in profits from his scheme that raised the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim more than 4,000 percent.

The lifetime ban was issued by the US District Judge after she found that Shkreli engaged in anticompetitive practices.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission and seven states, his former pharmaceutical company Vyera and its CEO Kevin Mulleady created a "web."

The drug is used to treat toxoplasmosis and can be deadly to newborns. The drug was kept out of the hands of competitors, suppliers were restricted from selling critical drug ingredients to competitors, and sales data was blocked from being released to competitors.

The list price of the drug was hiked by more than 4,000 percent.

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She concluded that Shkreli was responsible for the illegal conduct of Vyera throughout the years. She wrote that the interests of justice were served by his lifetime ban and order to pay $64.6 million in disgorgement.

The ruling was celebrated by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

"'Envy, greed, lust, and hate' don't just'separate' but they obviously motivated Mr. Shkreli and his partner to illegally jack up the price of a life-saving drug as Americans' lives hung in the balance," Attorney General James said.

The Attorney General said that Americans can rest easy because Martin Shkreli is no longer a pharma bro.

Last month, Vyera and its parent company, Phoenixus, agreed to pay up to $40 million to victims of the Daraprim scheme. The companies were barred from entering into any similar scheme for 10 years as a result of the settlement. The pharmaceutical industry banned Mulleady for seven years.

Shkreli is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud. He was ordered to give up $7.36 million in assets, including the only copy of the album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which he bought for $2 million at an auction.