To avoid being charged with contempt of court, former pharmaceutical executive and convicted fraudster Martin Shkreli gave a frowning argument to a federal judge on Friday, saying that his company Druglike, what he previously described as a “drug discovery software platform,” was not involved in drug discovery. As such, he argued that he did not violate a blanket lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry.
The Federal Trade Commission and seven states last month asked a federal judge in New York to hold Shkreli in contempt for failing to cooperate with an investigation into whether he violated the ban. According to the FTC, Shkreli did not provide requested documents related to Druglike and declined to be interviewed on the matter.
In Friday’s filing, Shkreli claims it responded to the FTC’s request “promptly and in good faith.” He admitted that when the FTC contacted him about the investigation last October, he didn’t have an attorney and didn’t know how to properly respond to the FTC’s investigation. However, he continued to adamantly deny that Druglike violated his lifetime ban.
For example, on Nov. 9, Shkreli replied to an email from an FTC attorney stating financial documents and records related to Druglike, as well as confirmations certifying that his Druglike involvement did not violate his ban. requested to submit a completed statement. Shkreli did not provide the requested documents, instead he wrote the following informal response:
Druglike does not shape or shape pharmaceutical companies. Nor is it near the outer boundary of what is described in the order. To even consider it within the mandate is plainly absurd. Nevertheless, we are happy to answer any questions to satisfy your curiosity.
broad ban
The lifetime ban is backdated to 2022, after the FTC and seven states filed lawsuits against Shkreli in 2022. This infamous 2015 scheme suddenly increased the price of the life-saving antiparasitic drug Daraprim by more than 4,000% from $17.50 to $750 per tablet. per tablet.
According to a 2022 court order in that case, Shkreli is to repay $64.6 million in profits he made from the scheme (which he has not done due to lack of funds), and he is a drug industry was forbidden to participate in rest of his life.
Specifically, the order states that he is prohibited from:
“participating in or directing the research, development, manufacture, commercialization, distribution, marketing, importation, or sale of pharmaceuticals or APIs; [active pharmaceutical Ingredient], paid or unpaid employment, consulting, advice, board membership, or otherwise. “
In this case, “development” means “all preclinical and clinical research and development activities related to medicinal products, Including the discovery or identification of new chemicals … .” (emphasis added)
But Druglike, co-founded by Shkreli, was aimed at discovering and identifying new chemical compounds that could become drugs. Shkreli will debut his company in July 2022, releasing a demo website, white papers, and press his press release announcing “his Web3 drug discovery democratizing cost, access and rewards in computational drug discovery. It was advertised as a “software platform”. “
In a press release, Shkreli is quoted as saying:
defense
In an affidavit filed on Friday, Shkreli described Druglike differently, calling it “professional software for chemists and physicists” and “for scientific researchers to combine two molecules. A calculator-like tool that calculates the relative affinities and energy costs of He also revealed that Druglike had “legally dissolved”, but that he was co-founder and now an employee of “its successor, DL Software”, and that Druglike and described as exactly the same.
In a particularly bizarre footnote to the affidavit, Shkreli included a tense argument comparing his drug discovery software to online tools for compiling recipes.
Druglike is a software tool much like a recipe builder on a website that allows users to enter and save their own recipes and calculate their nutritional value and cost per serving. You can’t tell users how different ingredients affect the taste or popularity of a recipe. Recipe Building Software does not research, develop, manufacture, commercialize, or sell any particular food, recipe, or restaurant, and its measurements are determined entirely by user data input and preferences. Similar to recipe-making applications like this, Druglike doesn’t influence or override results, it just calculates what the user wants.
Whether this debate will move judges and the FTC remains to be seen. But for now, Shkreli will have to convince a judge that he cooperated in good faith with his FTC investigation. Shkreli was able to find an attorney in his November and the FTC granted his Shkreli an extension to his December 2nd, filed the requested documents, and made a formal response regarding Druglike. .
FTC attorney Christine Tasso filed documents on January 20, 2023, saying she had not received the requested documents and had not heard from Shkreli’s new attorney, Brianne Murphy. On Friday, Murphy filed his affidavit, saying he fell ill around Thanksgiving and was subsequently hospitalized from December 13-24, resulting in a December 2 deadline and a December 5 voice from Tasso. Murphy added that she is currently working with the FTC to provide the requested information and set a time for the FTC to interview Shkreli.
