A congressional committee has summoned former drug CEO Martin Shkreli to attend a hearing on drug prices, urging him to testify about his former firm’s decision to increase a life-saving medication’s cost by over 5,000 percent.
Shkreli – now facing separate criminal charges for allegedly defrauding investors – was served a subpoena to attend the Jan. 26 meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
But whether the 32-year-old businessman will appear remains to be seen.
The Senate Special Committee on Aging, which also investigates the hefty drug price increases, said Shkreli refused to supply subpoenaed documents, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Shkreli took to Twitter Wednesday and said the House was “busy whining to [health care] reporters” about his congressional appearance next week.
“Haven’t decided yet. Should I?” wrote the controversial New York entrepreneur, who was known for raising the price of Daraprim – a decades-old therapy for a parasitic infection – from $13.50 to $750 a pill after acquiring it.
His company Turing Pharmaceuticals promised to cut Daraprim’s price following public backlash, but the biotech firm reneged on the said pledge.
Last month, Shkreli pleaded not guilty to charges of running his companies akin to a Ponzi scheme, where one uses a subsequent venture to pay off defrauded investors from a previous company. He stepped down as Turing's CEO and was fired from the same post in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy.
Shkreli was also sued by his past company Retrophin for mismanagement charges.
A testimony in Congress is deemed risky for someone being sued criminally, as he or she can divulge something that prosecutors can later use at the trial. Thus, many witnesses refuse to attend and answer inquiries, citing the Fifth Amendment.
Also scheduled to testify in the Tuesday hearing in the House are executives of companies that Shkreli formerly ran, namely Valeant Pharmaceuticals CEO Howard B. Schiller and Turing chief commercial officer Nancy Retzlaff.
Schiller, at a health care conference the previous week, said he is expecting the summons.
“[Y]ou survive these things and then you move on,” said Schiller, whose company Valeant is also hit for its drug pricing and faces congressional and federal scrutiny.
Photo: AL.Eyad | Flickr
