Martin Shkreli Biography
Martin Shkreli is a former hedge fund manager from the United States who is the co-founder and former CEO of the pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals, as well as the co-founder and former CEO of the start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016.
How old is Martin Shkreli? – Age
He is 39 years old as of 17 March 2022. He was born in 1983 in Brooklyn, New York, United States.
Martin Shkreli Family – Education
Shkreli was born to immigrant Albanian parents. His parents were Roman Catholic, and he describes his religion as “a guiding post” for him, despite the fact that he does not believe in God. His parents immigrated to America and worked as janitors. He, his two sisters, and his brother grew up in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, in a working-class neighborhood. Shkreli was raised Catholic and attended Sunday school as a child, according to most accounts. Shkreli graduated from Hunter College High School.
Shkreli graduated from Hunter or was expelled before his senior year and completed his high school diploma at City-As-School High School. When he was 17, he was accepted into a program that landed him an internship at Wall Street hedge fund Cramer, Berkowitz, and Company. Shkreli graduated from Baruch College with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 2004.
Martin Shkreli Wife
Shkreli was reported to be in a relationship with Christie Smythe, a former Bloomberg News reporter who broke the news of Shkreli’s arrest in 2015. Their relationship was described as “life partners” by Smythe. Smythe revealed in October 2021 that the two had broken up but remained friends.
Martin Shkreli Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $70 million.
Martin Shkreli Wu-Tang
Shkreli paid around $2 million for the 31-track Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, as well as the then-unreleased Lil Wayne album Tha Carter V, at an auction in 2015. He was ordered to pay $388,000 in restitution in April 2018.
The United States government auctioned off the Wu-Tang Clan album purchased by Shkreli for an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed buyer in July 2021. The acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, stated that “Shkreli has been held accountable and paid the price for lying and stealing from investors to enrich himself,” and that “his payment of the forfeiture is now complete with today’s sale of this one-of-a-kind album.”
Shkreli won an auction for the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin after a single copy of the album was sold for US$2 million via Paddle8 on November 24, 2015. Shkreli stated on his Twitter account in October 2016 that if Donald Trump won the 2016 US presidential election, he would make the album available for free download and would destroy it if Hillary Clinton won. He released the intro and one track the day after Trump was elected president.
Martin Shkreli Jail – Prison
Shkreli was arrested by the FBI on December 17, 2015, following a federal indictment in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The charges were brought against him following an investigation into his time at MSMB Capital Management and Retrophin. According to prosecutors, he used each subsequent company to repay defrauded investors from the previous one. Martin Shkreli’s bail was revoked in September 2017 after he advertised on Facebook a strand of Hillary Clinton’s hair for $5,000.
The offer was interpreted by Judge Matsumoto as a solicitation to assault, which is not protected by the First Amendment. Brafman stated that his client was reacting to media baiting and was also suffering from extreme anxiety as a result of his situation.
Martin Shkreli Insulin
Shkreli filed requests with the FDA in 2011 to reject a new cancer diagnostic device from Navidea Biopharmaceuticals and an inhalable insulin therapy from MannKind Corporation, while publicly short-selling both companies’ stocks, which dropped in value following Skhreli’s interventions. As a result, the companies had difficulty launching the products, though the FDA eventually approved both.
Martin Shkreli Pharmaceuticals
Shkreli founded Turing Pharmaceuticals after leaving Retrophin in February 2015. Turing was launched with three drugs in development acquired from Retrophin: an intranasal ketamine version for depression, an intranasal oxytocin version, and Vecamyl for hypertension. Shkreli devised a business strategy for Turing that included obtaining licenses for off-patent medicines and reevaluating their pricing in order to generate windfall profits for the new company without the need to develop and market its own drugs. Turing calculated that with closed distribution for the product and no competition, it could set high prices because markets for out-of-patent drugs are often small and obtaining regulatory approval to manufacture a generic version is expensive.
Daraprim (pyrimethamine) was approved by the FDA in 1953 for the treatment of both AIDS-related and unrelated toxoplasmosis. Turing purchased Daraprim from Impax Laboratories in August 2015 for US$55 million while maintaining tight distribution control. In the United States, the price of a dose of the drug increased by a factor of 56 overnight (from US$13.50 to US$750 per pill). In September 2015, he stated that patient co-pays would be reduced and that many patients would receive the drug for free. To help explain the pricing decision, the company hired four lobbyists and a crisis public relations firm.
Turing Pharmaceuticals announced in November 2015 that it would not reduce the list price but would instead negotiate volume discounts with hospitals. According to patient advocates, this is insufficient, and patients are frequently required to continue treatment for weeks or months after leaving the hospital.
An investor group led by Shkreli purchased a majority stake in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (OTC Pink Limited: KBIOQ), a biopharmaceutical company based in South San Francisco, CA, in November 2015. Shkreli was appointed CEO of the company and planned to continue as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. KaloBios Pharmaceuticals fired him as CEO after his arrest in December 2015. KaloBios filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on December 29, 2015. This came after NASDAQ delisted its shares and two directors resigned.