Martin Shkreli, former chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, center, pauses while speak to members of the media with his attorney Benjamin Brafman, right, outside federal court in the Brooklyn borough of New York, U.S., on Friday, Aug. 4, 2017.
Peter Foley | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The Federal Trade Commission on Friday asked that notorious “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli be held in contempt of court for forming a new drug company in violation of a judge’s ban on the convicted fraudster from working in the pharmaceuticals industry.
Shkreli, who was released from prison last year, in February was banned “for life from directly or indirectly
participating in any manner in the pharmaceutical industry” as a result of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit against him and a prior drug company that he founded.
That order stemmed from Manhattan federal court Judge Denise Cote’s ruling in January 2022 that Shkreli oversaw an illegal scheme to maintain a monopoly on the life-saving drug Daraprim, which continued even as he sat in prison for his conviction in an unrelated securities fraud case.
In its court filing Friday, the FTC noted that Shkreli in July announced the formation of a new company, Druglike, “that appears to be involved in the drug industry.”
The filing quoted Druglike’s press release on that announcement, which called the company “a Web3 drug discovery software platform co-founded by Martin Shkreli.”
The FTC said the company’s creation, as well as Shkreli’s
