 U.S.
FTC, states to take Shkreli to trial over price hike
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[December 14, 2021]
By Brendan Pierson
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade
Commission and several states are set to take Vyera Pharmaceuticals
founder Martin Shkreli to trial on Tuesday for trying to block generic
versions of Vyera's life-saving drug Daraprim, a week after settling
with the company.
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 The FTC and the states have accused Shkreli of masterminding an
illegal scheme to buy Daraprim and secure a monopoly on it so that
Vyera could raise its price to $750 per tablet, from $17.50, a move
that made Shkreli infamous as "Pharma Bro" in 2015. The drug is used
to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that threatens people
with weakened immune systems.
The non-jury trial will take place before U.S. District Judge Denise
Cote in Manhattan federal court. Christopher Casey, a lawyer for
Shkreli, could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
Vyera, founded in 2014 as Turing Pharmaceuticals, acquired Daraprim
from Impax Laboratories Inc in 2015. The FTC and states allege that
the company then prevented generic drugmakers from obtaining samples
to develop their own versions of the drug, and reached a deal with
the sole U.S. supplier of the drug's active ingredient preventing
sales to competitors.
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 They said the company's actions
violated federal antitrust laws and harmed
patients. The first generic version of Daraprim
was approved in 2020. Vyera and
former chief executive Kevin Mulleady settled the case against them
last week. The deal calls for Vyera to pay $10 million up front plus
up to $30 million over 10 years, and bans Mulleady from most roles
in the pharmaceutical industry for seven years.
Shkreli is currently serving a seven-year prison term for his 2017
conviction for cheating investors in two hedge funds and trying to
prop up the stock price of another drug company he led, Retrophin
Inc. He is eligible for release next year.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Alexia
Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis)
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