Drug price gouger Martin Shkreli resigns from Turing Pharmaceuticals

Martin Shkreli, the pharma executive who faced a barrage of criticism over price-gouging resigned yesterday as head of the drugmaker Turing Pharmaceuticals, a day after he was arrested on charges of securities fraud related to a company he previously ran.

Martin Shkreli, whose arrest (See: Price-gouging pharma firm's Martin Shkreli arrested for securities fraud) delighted thousands of people shocked by his nonchalance after hiking the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000 per cent, would be replaced on an interim basis by Ron Tilles, privately held Turing said in a statement.

Tilles had become chairman of Turing's board of directors after the foundation of the company late last year.

Turing also said in a statement that business could continue as usual and the drug Daraprim, would not be denied to those who needed it.

According to some media commentators, Shkreli, a 32-year-old former hedge fund manager, had become the ''most hated man in America,'' for jacking up by 5,000 per cent the price of ?Daraprim, the only approved drug for toxoplasmosis, a life-threatening parasitic infection, from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

Shkreli later pledged to lower Daraprim's price, but reneged and instead offered hospitals a 50-per cent discount, which still amounted to a hefty 2,500 per cent increase.

''Shkreli has become the Wolf of Pharma Street – he's basically come to represent everything that was bad and wrong with pharma,'' Art Caplan, a medical ethicist at New York University, said by phone. And while Shkreli may be reviled, said Caplan, ''he's not doing anything in terms of prices that other companies haven't done,'' Boston Herald reported.

Like Shkreli, Valeant CEO Mike Pearson had excelled at finding cheap drugs, hiking their price and reaping huge profits.

Valeant took two heart drugs, Nitropress and Isuprel, and hiked their prices by 212 per cent and 525 per cent, respectively. Rodelis hiked a tuberculosis treatment to $360 a pill from $20, before it said in September that it would give up rights to the drug.

The company said on its website that Rodelis was working to ensure  ''long-term availability'' of the tuberculosis drug, and planned to maintain patients' access.