Being an overt dick restricts your options. No authority will ever give you leniency when you overtly stood up against them. So unless it's a political stance you wish to make, the best thing is to keep quiet publicly and get dirty privately. If you can somehow expose liars (c.f., Mueller + Flynn), you have a lot of leverage. So what pharma bro should have done was not gone on TV and been a dick or threaten political figures while out on bail, but instead should have played nice and (perhaps) tried to dirty up other people in the case quietly.
'Pharma Bro' sued by US officials, New York over infamous drug price hike https://www.smh.com.au/business/com...infamous-drug-price-hike-20200128-p53vcq.html Convicted 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli was sued by federal officials and the state of New York for allegedly violating antitrust law when he jacked up the price of a crucial drug by 4000 per cent overnight in 2015. The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan by the Federal Trade Commission and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The complaint names Vyera Pharmaceuticals LLC, formerly known as Turing Pharmaceuticals, along with co-owners Shkreli and Kevin Mulleady. Martin Shkreli is in prison serving a seven-year sentence for defrauding investors.Credit:AP The allegations are separate from what landed Shkreli behind bars, though the drug at the centre of the case is the same. He's in prison serving a seven-year sentence for defrauding investors in hedge funds he ran by lying to them about his track record and performance as well as a fraud scheme involving Retrophin, a company he founded in 2011. Shkreli, who was ousted from Retrophin in 2014, started Turing Pharmaceuticals the following year. While operating the biopharmaceutical business Shkreli acquired a drug called Daraprim, a once-affordable anti-infective for a potentially deadly parasitic infection. The FTC and New York claim he then raised the price and used a complex web of contractual restrictions to block generic versions. The defendants "acquired the US rights to Daraprim from the only existing supplier and immediately raised the price from $US17.50 to $US750 per tablet," according to the complaint. "This massive price hike delivered immediate benefits to defendants." "We won't allow 'Pharma Bros' to manipulate the market and line their pockets at the expense of vulnerable patients," James said in a statement. Related Article Pharmaceuticals 'Stupid mistakes': Crying Pharma Bro sentenced to seven years in jail "Mr. Shkreli looks forward to defeating this baseless and unprecedented attempt by the FTC to sue an individual for monopolising a market," Shkreli's lawyer Benjamin Brafman said in a statement. Shkreli, who taught himself biology, and his company Turing Pharmaceuticals were among those included in a 2016 US Senate committee report that called for the government to stop a "monopoly business model" used by some drugmakers to raise prices on certain medications. In Washington, the infamously sarcastic Shkreli has remained the face of increasingly high drug costs. President Donald Trump has called the former hedge fund manager-turned-drug executive a "spoiled brat," while the presidential campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has called him a "poster boy for drug company greed." Shkreli is scheduled to be released from prison in September 2023, according to the US Bureau of Prisons. He's being held in a facility in Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
Trump calling Shkreli a spoiled brat? Irony overload. Shkreli's parents were immigrant janitors, Trump's daddy was a corrupt real estate developer/slumlord.
Whether he is a spoiled brat or not, he's still an idiot by all accounts. When he raised the med price that much at the expense of seriously ill patients, did he really think he could get away with it?
I think you're missing the point. Similar things have been done for decades by big pharma companies and no-one said a word because of their lobby power. He does it and is immediately labeled a criminal. The US healthcare sector appears to be one big racket and unlike mobsters, they're actually untouchable.
Your point is well taken. However, did you see any of his YouTube videos? The guy is an idiot. Maybe he should have taken the example of the Big Pharma and kept his mouth shut.
In the long-term, by bringing attention to the issue, he might've actually helped to improve the situation. Because if it's all kept quiet, nothing will change.
For the record, he isn't in jail for raising drug prices. He did outright fraud, but got lucky with stocks so he was able to reimburse the investors. Nevertheless it was still misuse of investors' money aka fraud. Now his behavior later on sure didn't help the public or the judge to be sympathetic toward him, but again, raising the drug's price was not an illegal act.
Raising the price isn't illegal, but the New York attorney general’s office and the Federal Trade Commission thinks his company prevented competition. https://time.com/5772786/ny-feds-sue-pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-drug-price/