Martin Shkreli on Drug Price Hikes and Playing the World’s Villain [View all]

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VICE

Published on Jan 29, 2016
Martin Shkreli is a 32-year-old entrepreneur and company builder. A modern day Horatio Alger story, Shkreli grew up the son of two janitors in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, hustled his way into the hedge fund game, and is now worth at least $45 million. Although he made his money betting against the pharmaceutical industry, Shkreli switched to running a drug companies in 2012.

In August of last year, one of his companies acquired the rights to a drug that treats an infection that effects in people with AIDS and other immunodeficiencies.

Over night, the price per pill raised by more than 5000 percent and Shkreli became the poster child for capitalistic greed.

Shkreli ran with the bad-boy image, flaunting his trollish behaviour in the media, He's not your typical pharma tycoon anyways. Over the past year he's also funded an indie record label, claimed he would bail Bobby Shmurda out of jail, and purchased the singular copy of a legendary Wu-Tang Clan album … with no immediate plans to even play it.

In December, Shkreli was indicted on securities fraud charges and is now under investigation by Congress and the Federal Trade Commission for price gouging… so his time in the spotlight is not over yet.

VICE caught up with him at his midtown apartment to meet the man behind the headlines.