‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli booted from his company by activist revolt

Convicted “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli has finally been ousted as boss of the pharmaceutical company he founded, The Post has learned.

Activist shareholders booted the group of directors still loyal to Shkreli during the annual general meeting of Turing’s parent company, Vyera, on Thursday.

Shkreli rose to notoriety after he hiked the price of life-saving AIDS treatment Daraprim to $750 a pill from $17.50 after obtaining the exclusive rights to it in 2015.

“The plan is to remove Martin from the company, right the price of Daraprim to pre-Shkreli levels, and do what’s right first with patients, physicians then shareholders,” Jason Aryeh, a longtime activist who previously sought to wrest control of the company, told The Post.

Shkreli was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 after being convicted of securities fraud while running two hedge funds.

The victory for the activists comes after a fraught and lengthy proxy battle. In June 2021, Aryeh and other activist investors failed — with the 39-year-old fraudster voting his shares from prison. 

This time, however, Shkreli was banned by Vyera from voting his shares. Still, it wasn’t a slam dunk the activists would win. They feared the current directors — who owned an estimated 44% — could pull tricks like issuing themselves new shares.

The new group takes over a company in disarray, insiders told The Post.

As of June, Turing had “just $23 million in cash, down from $50 million the previous quarter” Aryeh said. “No idea what they’re doing — they burned through $27 million… where did it go?”

“The plan is to liquidate any remaining assets and return money to shareholders,” Aryeh added. “There’s going to be more skeletons they’re going to uncover — my guess is it’ll go defunct eventually.”

Derek Abbott, a bankruptcy lawyer who has been appointed as the legal “receiver” led the charge in this proxy battle. Abbott declined to comment.

In December, the Federal Trade Commission accused Shkreli in court of using anticompetitive tactics to drive up the price of Daraprim. The feds won, resulting in Shkreli being banned from the pharmaceutical industry in the US.

However, because Vyera is based in Switzerland — and subject to Swiss laws — the FTC ban was not enforceable.

Shkreli was sprung from prison in May and moved to a halfway house, from where he is expected to be released Sept. 14. 

He also was banned from Twitter in 2017 for “targeted harassment” of a journalist.

After his early release from prison, Shkreli quipped on Facebook: “Getting out of real prison is easier than getting out of Twitter prison.”