Dec. 18--One day after getting placed in handcuffs and charged with seven counts of securities fraud and conspiracy, pharmaceutical bad boy Martin Shkreli resigned from his job as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
Ron Tilles, chairman of the New York pharmaceutical startup, will replace Shkreli on an interim basis, the company said.
"We wish to thank Martin for helping us to build Turing Pharmaceuticals into the dynamic research focused company it is today, and wish him the best in his future endeavors," Tilles said in a statement.
Turing caused a national furor this summer when it bought a lifesaving drug, Daraprim, and raised the price by about 5,000 percent overnight. Daraprim is a treatment for toxoplasmosis, a rare parasitic disease often contracted by eating undercooked contaminated meat. The disease can cause severe brain damage and death in people with compromised immune systems, including those with AIDS.
Doctors, drug critics and patient advocates condemned Shkreli for jacking up the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 a dose. The drug is sold exclusively through some Walgreens pharmacies. The Deerfield-based company has been calling for Turing to lower the price.
But an unapologetic Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager, said earlier this month that lowering the price was not in his game plan. "I would have raised prices higher," he told an audience at a health care summit in New York. "That's my duty."
Shkreli, 32, picked up the nickname "Pharma Bro" for often appearing in public wearing hoodies and sneakers.
The charges against Shkreli are related to his tenure as a manager of a hedge fund before he founded Turing.
jrussell@tribpub.com
