Martin Shkreli Settles Class-Action Litigation for $28 Million

Former biotech CEO Martin Shkreli, nicknamed “Pharma Bro,” will pay up to $28 million along with a colleague and Shkreli’s former company Vyera Pharmaceuticals to lay to rest class action litigation over their alleged scheme to greatly overcharge consumers for an anti-parasitic drug.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states sued in January 2020, accusing Vyera — formerly Shkreli’s company Turing — of increasing the price of the anti-parasitic Daraprim by more than 4,000 percent from $17.50 to $750 a pill in 2015. Daraprim treats toxoplasmosis, a potentially fatal parasitic disease for HIV patients and other immunocompromised people.

Earlier this month, a federal judge banned Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry, ordering him to pay about $65 million he made in the anticompetitive scheme for which he was convicted in 2017.