Martin Shkreli (/ˈʃkrɛli/; born March 17, 1983) is an American financial criminal and businessman. Shkreli is the co-founder of the hedge funds Elea Capital, MSMB Capital Management, and MSMB Healthcare, the co-founder and former
CEO of
pharmaceutical firms Retrophin and
Turing Pharmaceuticals, and the former CEO of start-up software company Gödel Systems, which he founded in August 2016.
In September 2015, Shkreli was widely criticized when Turing obtained the manufacturing license for the
antiparasitic drug
Daraprim and raised its price from US$13.50 to $750 per pill.
In 2017, Shkreli was charged and convicted in federal court on two counts of
securities fraud and one count of
conspiracy for activity unrelated to the Daraprim controversy. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and up to $7.4 million in fines. In the civil
antitrust (monopoly abuse) case Shkreli was fined a further $64.6 million to be repaid to victims. On May 18, 2022, he was released early from the
low-security federal prison in
Allenwood, Pennsylvania.
Shkreli told Vanity Fair that he developed an interest in chemistry when a family member suffered from treatment-resistant
depression.[6]
Career
During Shkreli's time at
Cramer, Berkowitz and Company, he recommended
short-selling the stock of
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company testing a weight-loss drug. When its price dropped in accordance with Shkreli's prediction, Cramer's hedge fund profited. Shkreli's prediction drew the attention of the
Securities and Exchange Commission, which investigated Shkreli's knowledge about the stock but was unable to prove wrongdoing on his part.[17]
MSMB Capital Management
After four years as an associate at Cramer Berkowitz, Shkreli worked as a financial analyst for Intrepid Capital Management and
UBS Wealth Management.[18] He then started his first hedge fund, Elea Capital Management, in 2006.[15][19] In 2007,
Lehman Brothers sued Elea in New York state court for failing to cover a '
put option transaction' in which Shkreli bet the wrong way on a broad market decline. When stocks rose, Shkreli did not have the money to cover his losses. In October 2007, Lehman Brothers won a $2.3 million default judgment against Shkreli and Elea, but
Lehman collapsed before it could collect on the ruling.[17]
In September 2009, Shkreli and a childhood friend Marek Biestek started MSMB Capital Management,[8][20] which took its name from the initials of the two.[15][17] Shkreli and Biestek
shorted biotech companies, then described flaws in the companies on stock trading chat rooms.[6]
On February 1, 2011, in a
naked short sale on an account it held with
Merrill Lynch, MSMB Capital sold short 32 million shares of
Orexigen Therapeutics stock at about $2.50 per share the day after its price plunged from $9.09, when the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined to approve the drug
naltrexone/bupropion (Contrave).[21][22] The stock price rebounded; MSMB could not cover the position, although it had told Merrill Lynch that it could.[23] Merrill Lynch lost $7 million on the trade and MSMB Capital was virtually wiped out.
Retrophin's 2015 SEC Complaint contended Shkreli had created MSMB Healthcare and Retrophin "so that he could continue trading after MSMB Capital became insolvent and to create an asset that he might be able to use to placate his MSMB Capital investors."[24]
In 2011, Shkreli filed requests with the FDA to reject a new cancer diagnostic device from Navidea Biopharmaceuticals and an inhalable
insulin therapy from
MannKind Corporation while publicly short-selling both companies' stocks, the values of which dropped after Shkreli's interventions. The companies had difficulty launching the products as a result, although the FDA ultimately approved both.[17][25][26]
In 2011, MSMB made an unsolicited cash bid for AMAG Pharmaceuticals at a price of
US$378,000,000.[27] Matthew Herper of Forbes wrote that the attempted
hostile takeover was "done for the specific purpose of firing the company's management and stopping a proposed merger with Allos Therapeutics. When the merger plans stopped, so did Shkreli."[28]
Shkreli founded Retrophin (a
portmanteau of "Recombinant
dystrophin") in 2011 under the MSMB umbrella and ran it as a portfolio company with an emphasis on biotechnology, to create treatments for
rare diseases.[17][29][30][31]
In November 2013, Shkreli was chosen for the Forbes 30 Under 30.[32] The publication regretted it ten years later, placing Shkreli in its "Hall of Shame", a list of ten notably bad picks.[33][34]
Retrophin's board decided to replace Shkreli in September 2014, and he resigned from the company the following month.[24] He was replaced by Stephen Aselage.[35] During Shkreli's tenure as CEO, the company's employees used alias Twitter accounts to make gangster rap jokes and encourage short selling of other biotech stocks.[36]
After Shkreli's departure, Retrophin filed a US$65 million lawsuit against him in August 2015, claiming that he had breached his duty of loyalty to the biopharmaceutical company in a long-running dispute over his use of company funds[24][30][37] and "committed stock-trading irregularities and other violations of securities rules."[38] The lawsuit alleged that Shkreli had threatened and harassed a former MSMB employee and his family.[39]
Shkreli's name is on two patents held by Retrophin for drugs to treat
PKAN.[6][42]
In November 2020, Eric Dube, Retrophin's new chief executive, announced the company would be rebranded as Travere Therapeutics Inc. in an effort to further distance the company from Shkreli, and said the company is no longer working on treatments for the disease from which the company takes its name.[43]
Views on Shkreli's leadership
In July 2017, at Shkreli's criminal trial, Aselage, who was hired by Shkreli in October 2012, and replaced him at Retrophin in 2014, testified "He's a brilliant intellect, visionary" but also someone who was called a "
Pied Piper" and whom he, Aselege, "worried about not always getting 'straight answers' from".[44]
Thiola price hike
In May 2014, Shkreli had difficulty accessing public markets for capital, but received a $4 million
series A funding round and a
PIPE deal valued at $10 million underwritten by
Roth Capital Partners.[45] After obtaining the financing, Shkreli was able to acquire rights to market
tiopronin (brand name Thiola), a drug used to treat the rare disease
cystinuria, and another drug Chenodal, and subsequently raised the price of each drug substantially, with Thiola being marked up about 20 fold, from $1.50 to $30 per pill (patients must take 10 to 15 pills a day),[46][47] and Chenodal about fivefold.[48] Retrophin did not lower the price of these drugs after Shkreli's departure.[49]
Shkreli founded
Turing Pharmaceuticals in February 2015, after his departure from Retrophin. He launched Turing with three drugs in development acquired from Retrophin: An
intranasal version of
ketamine for depression, an intranasal version of
oxytocin, and
Vecamyl for
hypertension.[51] Shkreli set a business strategy for Turing: To obtain licenses on out-of-
patent medicines, and reevaluate the pricing of each in pursuit of
windfall profits for the new company, without the need to develop and bring its own drugs to market.[52][53] As markets for out-of-patent drugs are often small, and obtaining regulatory approval to manufacture a generic version is expensive, Turing calculated that with closed distribution for the product and no competition, it could set high prices.[52]
The
patent for Daraprim had expired, but no
generic version was available.[60] The Turing–Impax deal included the condition that Impax remove the drug from regular wholesalers and pharmacies,[57] and so in June 2015, two months before the sale to Turing was announced, Impax switched to tightly controlled distribution.[15] In keeping with its strategy for pricing in the face of limited competition, Turing maintained the closed distribution.[52]The New York Times said that the deal "made sense only if Turing planned to raise the price of the drug substantially."[15]
On September 17, 2015, Dave Muoio of Healio, an in-depth clinical information website for health care specialists,[61] reported on a letter from the
Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association to executives at Turing,[62] questioning a new pricing for Daraprim.[59] The price of a dose of the drug in the U.S. market increased by a factor of 56 (from US$13.50 to US$750 per pill) overnight.[63]
A subsequent organized effort called on Turing to return pricing to pre-September levels and to address several matters relating to the needs of patients, an effort that garnered endorsements from more than 160 medical‑specialty and patient‑related organizations (as of December 2015[update], 164 organizations from 31 states, the
District of Columbia, and
Puerto Rico).[68][69]
In response to the controversy, the record label
Collect Records publicly ended its business relationship with Shkreli, who had invested in the company.[70]
In a September 2015 interview with Bloomberg Markets, Shkreli said that despite the price increase, patient co-pays would actually be lower, that many patients would get the drug at no cost, that Turing had expanded its free drug program, and that it sold half of its drugs for one dollar.[71] He defended the price hike by saying, "If there was a company that was selling an
Aston Martin at the price of a bicycle, and we buy that company and we ask to charge Toyota prices, I don't think that that should be a crime."[72][73]
A few days later, Shkreli announced that he planned to lower the price by an unspecified amount, "in response to the anger that was felt by people."[40] But in late November, Turing reversed course and said it would not lower the price after all.[74]
Following a request by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative
Elijah Cummings for details of Turing Pharmaceuticals' finances and price-setting practices in September 2015,[75][76] the company hired four
lobbyists from
Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney with backgrounds in health care legislation and pharmaceutical pricing.[77][78] In addition to lobbyists, Shkreli hired a crisis public relations firm to help explain the pricing decision.[79]
On October 22, 2015, Mark L. Baum, CEO of
Imprimis Pharmaceuticals, announced that his company would provide a combination product containing pyrimethamine (the active ingredient in Daraprim) and leucovorin at "$1-a-pill" as a cheaper and more efficient alternative to Daraprim.[80] This product was intended to be used alongside sulfadiazine in the standard protocol to treat
toxoplasmosis typically seen in
AIDS patients.[59]
Baum said, "This is not the first time a sole supply generic drug – especially one that has been approved for use as long as Daraprim – has had its price increased suddenly and to a level that may make it unaffordable." He announced the availability of the compounded replacement for Daraprim as a part of a larger corporate program, "Imprimis Cares." to make "novel and customizable medicines available to physicians and patients at accessible prices." Imprimis began selling its compounded, orally taken formulations of pyrimethamine and leucovorin at US$99 for a 100 count bottle, essentially a dollar a dose.[80]
On November 23, 2015, Turing announced that the company would not reduce the
list price of Daraprim, but said it planned instead to negotiate volume discounts of up to 50% for hospitals.[81] Turing issued a statement that it was not as important to cut the list price as to reduce the cost to hospitals, where most patients get their initial treatment. The company pledged that no patient needing Daraprim would ever be denied access.[74]
Infectious disease specialists and patient advocates, including Tim Horn of the
Treatment Action Group and Carlos del Rio of the HIV Medicine Association, said Turing's actions were insufficient, given that patients initially treated for days at a hospital typically have to continue the treatment for weeks or months after leaving.[82]
Vyera/Phoenixus
After Shkreli was imprisoned, Turing changed its name to Vyera in 2017[83] to avoid negative publicity, and in 2019 was called Phoenixus AG. In March 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that Shkreli "steers his old company from prison."[84] Using a contraband cellphone from his prison ward in
Fort Dix, New Jersey, Shkreli was effectively directing the renamed firm, and was reported to have terminated the employment of executive Kevin P. Mulleady.[85] After this news was reported in various news outlets, Shkreli was moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in advance of a subsequent move to a federal prison in Pennsylvania.[86] He was also facing a Bureau of Prisons investigation into his breaking federal prison rules, since federal inmates are prohibited both from running a business from prison and from possessing cell phones.[87]
In May 2023, Vyera Pharmaceuticals declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware court, listing between $10 million and $50 million in assets and between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities. The company cited "declining profits, increased competition for generic drugs, and litigation alleging that Vyera suppressed competition for its most valuable drug, Daraprim" per Reuters. Shkreli's shares in Vyera had earlier been ordered seized by federal court related to an FTC judgment against him.[88]
FTC v. Vyera Pharmaceuticals
In January 2020 the FTC filed a case against Vyera "alleging an elaborate anticompetitive scheme to preserve a monopoly for the life-saving drug, Daraprim".[89] A settlement was reached in December 2021. According to
AP News, the settlement "requires Vyera and Phoenixus to provide up to $40 million in relief over 10 years to consumers who allegedly were fleeced by their actions and requires them to make Daraprim available to any potential generic competitor at the cost of producing the drug."[90] Kevin Mulleady "agreed to a seven-year ban on working for or holding more than an 8% share in most pharmaceutical companies."[91]
KaloBios Pharmaceuticals
In November 2015, an investor group led by Shkreli acquired a majority stake in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals (
OTC Pink Limited:
KBIOQ), a
biopharmaceutical company based in
South San Francisco, California.[92] Shkreli was named CEO of the company and also planned to continue in the role of CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.[93][94] After his December 2015 arrest, KaloBios Pharmaceuticals terminated him as CEO.[95] On December 29, 2015, KaloBios filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This followed
NASDAQ delisting its shares, and the resignation of two directors.[96]
Gödel Systems, Inc
Shkreli founded Gödel Systems in August 2016 as "a professional software company that aims to be the leading information provider of data, workflow, and communications solutions for financial, law, and scientific professionals." By February 2017, Gödel Systems was looking to raise $1 million through a debt offering, and had raised $50,000 out of the $1 million in debt it began issuing in mid-January 2017, according to regulatory filings. Ralph Holzmann, a former senior engineer at
Twitter, is the firm's
chief technology officer.
Druglike and Martin Shkreli Inu coin
Following his release from prison, in 2022, a planned software platform named Druglike controlled by Shkreli was announced with a stated aim of supporting the development of new pharmaceutical drugs.[97] A related
cryptocurrency project, the Martin Shkreli Inu coin, had been launched but in August lost 90% of its value (recovering shortly afterwards to a 55% loss) after a wallet belonging to Shkreli sold its holdings [clarification needed]. An account believed to belong to Shkreli claimed, in explanation, to have been hacked.[98]
On February 4, 2016, Shkreli appeared before the House committee,[100] along with Nancy Retzlaff,[101] the Chief Commercial Officer of Turing, and Howard B. Schiller, the interim CEO of
Valeant.[102]
Accompanied by his attorney
Benjamin Brafman, Shkreli invoked his
Fifth Amendment privilege against
self-incrimination in response to every question from committee members except for two: one from Representative
Trey Gowdy to confirm the pronunciation of his last name, and another from Representative
Elijah Cummings to affirm he was listening.[103][104] Shkreli also refused to answer even seemingly trivial questions outside the subject matter of the hearing, including those pertaining to his purchase of a
Wu-Tang Clanalbum.[105][106] Following Cummings's rebuke of Shkreli, Chairman
Jason Chaffetz dismissed Shkreli from the hearing.
Criminal conviction
Investigation and charges
On December 17, 2015, Shkreli was arrested by the
FBI after a federal
indictment in the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York was filed, charging him with
securities fraud. The charges were filed after an investigation into his tenure at MSMB Capital Management and Retrophin. U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said, "Shkreli essentially ran his company like a
Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company."[107]
Federal prosecutors said that Shkreli and co-defendant,
Evan Greebel, "engaged in multiple schemes to ensnare investors through a web of lies and deceit."[108][109] In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Shkreli said that he was targeted by law enforcement for his price hikes of the drug
Daraprim and his flamboyant personality.[110]
In early 2016, Shkreli retained
criminal defense attorneyBenjamin Brafman to defend him.[111][112] Due to Shkreli's notoriety and overwhelmingly negative public opinion, it was difficult to select an unbiased jury.[113] At his 2017 trial, Shkreli argued that none of his investors actually lost money (some actually turned a profit) and thus his actions did not constitute a crime.[114] Shkreli's frequent criticisms of the federal prosecutors in New York's
Eastern District, whom he called "
junior varsity" compared to their counterparts in the
Southern District across the
East River, both on his
Facebookstreaming video feed and in the hallways of the courthouse, led those prosecutors to request that judge
Kiyo A. Matsumoto issue a
gag order to prevent what they called a "campaign of disruption". Brafman said in response that his client was responding to baiting from the media and was also suffering from extreme anxiety because of his situation.[115] Matsumoto ordered Shkreli not to speak with reporters, either in the courthouse or its immediate vicinity.[116]
Trial, conviction, and sentencing
On August 4, 2017, the trial jury found Shkreli guilty on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and not guilty on five other counts which included wire fraud.[117] Shkreli said he was delighted with the outcome and described his prosecution as "a witch hunt of epic proportions".[118]
On September 13, 2017, his bail was revoked following a Facebook post offering $5,000 for a strand of Hillary Clinton's hair which the judge perceived as
solicitation to assault, which is not protected under the First Amendment.[119] Shkreli's post was preceded by others that suggested he might have plans to clone Hillary Clinton.[120] Shkreli said that his post was satire, and his lawyer described it as tasteless but not a threat.[120] Shkreli edited the post to add a disclaimer that it was satire,[121] and later said he did this minutes after publication.[122] Shkreli apologized for the post.[123] He was sent to the
Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn[124] while awaiting sentencing.[123][125]
On March 9, 2018, Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in federal prison.[126][127] During his sentencing, Judge
Kiyo A. Matsumoto said Shkreli seemed "genuinely remorseful" regarding his "egregious multitude of lies" but faulted him for having "repeatedly minimized" his misconduct. Shkreli, who cried as he gave his statement to the court, stated "I was never motivated by money."[128]
In 2019, Shkreli lost his appeal; the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously affirmed the conviction in a seven-page ruling.[129][130] The original judgment remained in effect: Shkreli was required to continue to serve his 7-year sentence and forfeit more than $7.3 million in assets.[130][129]
Forfeiture of assets
On March 5, 2018, Shkreli was ordered to forfeit nearly $7.4 million in assets.[131] The court ordered that if Shkreli had insufficient cash to fulfill the forfeiture order, his assets, including a piece of art by
Pablo Picasso, would be sold to do so. Shkreli purchased the 31-track
Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (of which a single copy exists) at an auction in 2015 for around $2 million, as well as the then-unreleased
Lil Wayne albumTha Carter V.[132] In April 2018, he was ordered to pay $388,000 in
restitution.[133]
In July 2021, the United States government auctioned off the Wu-Tang Clan album bought by Shkreli for an undisclosed amount to an undisclosed buyer.[134][135][136] Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, the acting
United States Attorney for the Eastern District of
New York, said "Shkreli has been held accountable and paid the price for lying and stealing from investors to enrich himself", and "With today's sale of this one-of-a-kind album, his payment of the forfeiture is now complete."[137]
Incarceration
Shkreli was federal inmate number 87850-053 and was first held at the
Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, prior to being transferred to federal prison.[138] On March 27, 2018, it was reported that Judge
Kiyo Matsumoto agreed to recommend Shkreli serve his prison sentence at the minimum-security federal camp at
USP Canaan, which he had previously requested.[139][140] On April 18, 2018, Shkreli was transferred from Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn, to
FCI Fort Dix (a low-security facility) after his request to serve at Canaan was denied.[124] Shkreli was later transferred to
FCC Allenwood.[141]
On September 6, 2019, several media outlets reported that Shkreli had leveled a lawsuit in a Brooklyn court claiming he had been fraudulently persuaded by a former investor in his Elea Capital fund to sign a promissory note that "left him owing $420,000 to the man's father."[142][143] Also in 2019, he was transferred to solitary confinement for a time, after prison authorities discovered he was using a contraband smartphone to conduct business from prison.[144] While incarcerated, he began a relationship with reporter Christie Smythe, leading to their engagement during his imprisonment.[145][146]
Shkreli asked the court for
compassionate release in April 2020, saying that he should be allowed to live at the
New York City apartment of his then-fiancée (later identified as former
Bloomberg reporter Christie Smythe) and that his firm needed him to develop a
remedy for COVID-19. Judge Matsumoto denied the request and said it was another instance of "delusional self-aggrandizing behavior" by Shkreli.[147][148][149]
Release
On May 18, 2022, Shkreli was released from the Allenwood prison and transferred to a Bureau of Prisons
halfway house; according to Shkreli's lawyer Brafman, Shkreli was released after "completing all programs that allowed for his prison sentence to be shortened."[141][150] He lived in the halfway house until September 2022; after his release, he lived with his sister in
Queens and earned $2,500 per month as a consultant for a small law firm.[151][152] In his
Substack, Shkreli wrote that he did the consulting "as a favor, to a friend" and did not "live on $2,500 a month" but rather had an additional salary in a "main day job" for DL Software, as well as income from other software ventures.[153]
In April 2018, New York's attorney general asked Judge Matsumoto for priority on more than $480,000 out of the $7.4 million in assets forfeited to the federal government, arguing that the state had priority over the federal government's claims for Shkreli's forfeited assets.[154]
In April 2018, Shkreli agreed to a
Securities and Exchange Commission order banning him from the securities industry in exchange for settlement of the SEC administrative action against him; Shkreli is eligible to apply for readmission to the industry.[154]
In 2020, the
Federal Trade Commission and seven states—California, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—filed a civil lawsuit against Shkreli.[155] A seven-day
bench trial was held in December 2021.[155] In January 2022, Judge
Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an lengthy opinion and order directing Shkreli to return $64.6 million in wrongfully obtained profits (
disgorgement); the money is to be distributed to victims nationwide (via the states that were plaintiffs in the case). The court found that Shkreli had violated federal and state law through an
anticompetitive scheme to delay "the entry of
generic competition for at least eighteen months" and banned Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life.[155][156][157]
On February 23, 2022, U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered Shkreli to pay a $1.39 million fine for violating securities laws between 2009 and 2014 and banned from serving as an officer or a director of any publicly traded company for life.[158][159]
Net worth
In January 2016, Fortune estimated the then-32-year-old Shkreli's net worth was at least $45 million but later updated its profile to reflect that "[S]ince this article was published the value of Shkreli's E*Trade account had dropped by more than $40 million."[160] Shkreli leveraged a $4 million
E-Trade account for his bail.[161]
In June 2017, Reuters reported that Shkreli had reported his net worth at $70 million after being arrested in 2015 and that his attorney Benjamin Brafman, in a hearing before Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, had conceded that his client still owned shares of Turing Pharmaceuticals worth between $30 and $50 million.[162]
Personal life
In December 2020, Shkreli was in a relationship with Christie Smythe, a former reporter for Bloomberg News who broke the news of Shkreli's arrest in 2015. Smythe described their relationship as being "life partners". In October 2021, Smythe said the two had broken up but remained friends.[147][163]
In October 2023, Vanity Fair published an article on
Madison Campbell, the CEO of
Leda Health.[164] In the article, it was revealed that Campbell had been involved in a romantic relationship with Shkreli between February and August 2023.[164] Campbell says the two bonded over being "healthcare pariahs" but chose to keep her relationship with him private due to his reputation. Shkreli denied Vanity Fair's request for comment and blocked the author of the article on
Twitter.[164]
Hobbies and interests
Shkreli, an avid League of Legends player, began expressing interest in purchasing an
eSports team in May 2014.[165]Enemy eSports rejected a US$1.2 million offer from Shkreli.[166] He later founded his own team, Odyssey eSports, and aimed to qualify for the 2015
North American League of Legends Challenger Series, but the team failed. In August 2015, Odyssey merged with another team to become the organization Team Imagine, with Shkreli becoming chairman of the team. During the merger, the organization signed the Dota 2 team Leviathan.[167][168]
In September 2017,[172] Shkreli attempted to sell Once Upon a Time in Shaolin on
eBay, with the winning bid passing US$1 million. He was incarcerated before the sale could be completed.[173] In March 2018, following Shkreli's conviction for fraud, a federal court seized assets belonging to him worth $7.36 million, including Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.[174]
^US patent 8673883, "Pantothenate derivatives for the treatment of neurologic disorders"US patent 9181286, "Pantothenate derivatives for the treatment of neurologic disorders""Google patents".
Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
^Long, Heather; Matt Egan; Dodley Dominique (September 22, 2015).
"Meet the guy behind the $750 AIDS drug". Money. CNN.
Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 23, 2015.
^Walters, Joanna (September 25, 2015).
"Label Cuts Ties With Hedge Fund Man Who Boosted AIDS Drug Price 5,000%". Music Industry. The Guardian. London, UK.
Archived from the original on September 29, 2015. Retrieved September 28, 2015. Subtitle: Collect Records says it is impossible to continue having Martin Shkreli as investor over raising Daraprim price from $13.50 per tablet to $750.