Could Congress ask Shkreli about more illegal activity?
When “Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli testifies before Congress this morning to talk about the pharmaceutical price gouging he was involved in at Turing Pharmaceuticals, it will be hard for him to avoid questions about his recent arrest on securities fraud charges. But that might not be the only misconduct he has to answer for.
CREW first drew attention to Shkreli four years ago when we filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging he tried to manipulate pharmaceutical and biotech stock prices, including attempting to get the FDA to reject a drug because he was shorting stock in the company. He also wrote blog posts on investing websites predicting drugs would not get approved in an attempt to force down their makers’ stock prices.
Later in 2012, we filed a complaint asking the Department of Justice to investigate Shkreli for his financial shenanigans running the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management (the Department of Justice would later base their charges on his tenure at MSMB). While he has not yet been charged for these additional apparent violations of the law, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched a thorough investigation into him. Shkreli has threatened to plead the fifth in response to any questions he gets. We have two hopes for this hearing: that the Committee will ask him about his apparent stock manipulation in addition to his other misconduct, and that he’ll be brave enough to answer.