Who's best known as the pharma bro,
has been ordered to return tens of millions of dollars in profits,
that he made by price gouging patients who needed an HIV medication.
He's also barred from working in the drug industry in the future,
I should also note that he's currently behind bars, for defrauding investors.
That will get you in trouble here in the United States more on that later,
but here's what we know.
Companies founded by notorious pharma bro Martin Shkreli has
agreed to pay up to $28 million to settle a class action lawsuit.
Over its staggering price hike of the prescription medication,
Daraprim by 4,000%.
Shkreli controversially raised the drug's price from $13.15 per pill,
which by the way, is already insanely expensive,
to a whopping $750 per pill in 2015.
Now part of this settlement, has to do with
the fact that he was being investigated for creating a monopoly for this drug.
And this is actually very commonplace in the pharmaceutical industry,
let's not make a mistake by thinking that Martin Shkreli,
is the only one who has done this.
It's currently taking place right now, as we speak,
I did a lengthy report on a drug called Revlimid that is being turned into
a monopoly to ensure that drug manufacturers can maintain their profits.
But nonetheless, in her ruling against him this month, Judge Denise Cote found that
Shkreli initiated a scheme to block the entry of generic drug competition.
So that he could reap the profits from Deraprim sales for
as long as possible when he increased the price of the drug.
And the way they do this by the way,
is by restricting access to the active ingredient of the drug.
So some of the generic drug manufacturers, won't have access to it,
won't be able to test it, or produce it.
Again, this is very commonplace in the pharmaceutical industry,
Martin Shkreli made the mistake of being this like.
Boisterous guy who would brag about it, drawing attention to himself, and
that's why he's facing consequences.
The other mistake he made,
was he screwed over investors that will get you in trouble in the US.
Price gouging patients,
that's not enough to get the attention necessary to ensure prosecution.
>> So, I'm glad these cases came out the way that they did he is guilty,
and I'm glad he's paying this.
Unfortunately, if he's paying the number that means he probably made more, and so
he's probably gonna get to keep a lot of it, but we don't know the details of that.
But the most important part of this story guys, is how much of an exception it is,
and not the rule.
And there's a very good reason for that, Shkreli did a number of things wrong, one,
he was flamboyant about how he was ripping people off, that will draw attention.
But he would have easily survived that too, if he was part of a larger company
that regularly gave campaign contributions, but he wasn't.
So in fact he ripped off this is his third, and most lethal mistake,
he ripped off other rich people.
So, he's currently serving a seven year sentence for
ripping off wealthy investors.
That's the only thing you'll ever go to jail for in white collar crime,
same thing, Bernie Madoff went to jail for, etcetera, right?
But in this case, who was suing him?
Blue cross blue shield, they're the ones with the political power, so
don't get it twisted.
The same corrupt companies that control our government,
still one in this case, it Shkreli just had ripped all of us off.
He almost certainly would have gotten away with it, and in fact, honestly,
I don't even understand what distinction any judge would draw between this case.
And what every pharmaceutical company does in almost every case, so
they say he did price gouging.
>> Yeah. >> Every pharmaceutical company does price
gouging, In fact, the second most famous example of it.
Is done by Joe Manchin's daughter,
when she was a pharmaceutical company executive.
>> Yeah, when she was the CEO of Mylan pharmaceuticals,
she created a monopoly for the EpiPen.
She made a deal with fizer to prevent the release
of a generic version of the EpiPen.
And promised to share profits with Pfizer, as long as they agreed to that deal,
she engaged in very similar behavior, got away with it.
>> Yeah, I'm sure Biden will be pursuing her through his justice department, no,
of course not, they're crooked.
So they're never gonna do that, right?
And so look, anti competitive practices, who are we kidding?
The drug companies have told the American government,
you are not allowed to negotiate drug prices with us.
It doesn't get any more anticompetitive than that, and
all of our politicians, republicans, and democrats agreed to it,
because they took bribes from drug companies.
They got millions of dollars in campaign contributions, you can call it legal, but
it's still a bribe.
And so finally, I mean, look at that name up there pfizer, well,
what is pfizer and Moderna doing right now?
They're preventing generics from getting into the market in developing countries,
because they're not getting paid enough on it.
They want higher prices profits, what do they want to do?
They wanna do anticompetitive practices,
prevent generics because they want price gouging.
And by the way, in this case, literally millions across the world have died
because they will not share that technology.
They on the other hand are free to go, and they're celebrated as heroes in
Washington, where Australia went to prison.
And he's gonna have to give up most of his money, and
that's how so called justice works in America.
>> All right, it was a good story, but there's a downside to it,
we've managed to make it negative, its all right.
>> No, but it's true.
>> It's true. >> Look,
I'm thrilled that he's being punished, he was a jerk,
he did do all those things great.
Let's use it as precedent, and now go after all the bigger fish, but
I say that facetiously.
Because, there's not a politician, or a prosecutor in the country who
would oppose business power like that, they will all given.
And if they got to a court there would be a pro business judge appointed by other
corrupt politicians, who would kill the case, and that's how the system works.