Former pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli and his lead attorney Benjamin Brafman arrive at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York City, for his securities fraud case on August 3, 2017 Jury deliberations on the fourth day of the trial.
Amr Alfiqi | Reuters
this Supreme Court Notorious “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli on Monday filed an appeal to be heard against a $64 million fine imposed on fraudsters who blocked the development of a life-saving drug. competition, and he raised the price of the drug by more than $700 per pill.
Shkreli asks Supreme Court to take up his case appeal The federal court ruling is his last chance to overturn penalties related to the drug Daraprim.
In rejecting the request, the Supreme Court did not explain why it did so. This decision was not contested by any judge.
CNBC has asked Shkreli’s lawyers and Federal Trade Commissionwhose lawsuit against Shkreli resulted in the penalty.
People pass outside the U.S. Supreme Court on October 7, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Kent Nishimura | Getty Images
Shkreli’s pharmaceutical company gained national notoriety in 2015 when it raised the price of Daraprim by more than 4,000 percent. This drug is used to treat parasitic infections in pregnant women, infants, people with HIV, and others.
In 2020, while Shkreli was serving prison time for financial crimes unrelated to Daraprim, he and his company, Vyera Pharmaceuticals, were sued by the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly illegally blocking competition for Daraprim. The Federal Trade Commission and a group of state attorneys general involved in the lawsuit said Shkreli’s actions cost consumers tens of millions of dollars annually.
In January 2022, a Manhattan federal court judge ruled in favor of the FTC, banning Shkreli for life from the pharmaceutical industry and ruling that he must hand over the $64.6 million he earned from raising the price of Daraprim profit.
In January, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously upheld the penalty.
Shkreli asked the Supreme Court in June to hear his appeal of the ruling, but only if it applied to financial penalties. There is no automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court.
In a petition to the Supreme Court, Shkreli’s attorneys said the Second Circuit’s ruling conflicts with rulings from the federal courts of appeals for the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits, which “classified the defendant’s personal gains from misconduct.” Benefits are limited to the scope of liability for recovery of illegal gains”.
“Instead, the Second Circuit concluded that a defendant could be ordered to ‘disgorge’ profits that he or she never received, owned, or controlled, but which were instead owned by other parties,” the filing states.
Shkreli’s attorneys wrote that he personally did not receive any profits from conduct considered anticompetitive, but rather that those were made by his co-defendant companies in the case.
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