Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Shames Other CEOs on Website Apparently Designed in the '90s
Why take responsibility for your own behavior when you can just point a finger and blame everyone else for all their wrongdoings?
That seems to have been former Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO (and Twitter troll) Martin Shkreli's rationale for launching a bare-bones website that puts other pharma execs on blast.
The website, which looks like it's straight out of 1998, is titled Pharma Skeletons, and it calls out dozens of pharmaceutical companies for their (alleged) ethical infractions and shady practices. As if this somehow makes jacking up the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 a tablet -- and just generally being an intolerable human -- justifiable.
He throws major shade at Bayer ("We raise prices on drugs by 100%+ but no one notices"), Mallinckrodt/Questcor ("Really? Acthar's 65,000% price increase represents your values but Turing doesn't?"), and Marathon ("Bro. These guys invented price increases. I literally learned it from them"), among others. It seems no pharmaceutical company is safe from Shkreli's charming writing style and creative zingers.
However, the infamous exec isn't the only one who feels this way about Big Pharma. Outrageous price hikes and corporate greed have long plagued the industry, which is why lobbying firm Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) recently started a PR campaign to repair its image. To promote its GOBOLDLY campaign, PhRMA CEO Stephen Ubl made an appearance on CNBC where he went after Shkreli, saying, "much of the public discussion has been focused on some guy in a hoodie," an obvious jab at the casually dressed entrepreneur.
This seems to be what set Shkreli off, leading him to launch Pharma Skeletons and point the finger at Ubl himself, making declarations on the site like, "90% of you are the same as you, Mr. Ubl, slick guys in suits who make a living spewing bullshit."
He also added: "This website took me half an hour to make, just 'membering a few moments from the past," and "Let me remind you 90% of your members' CEOs could not hold a candle to me in scientific knowledge." If this whole pharma CEO thing doesn't work out (hint: it probably won't), Shkreli might have a career in writing. For, like, Jeff Ross or someone.
It could also be that this little site is the only place the former Turing Pharmaceuticals exec can actually express his opinions because he's been banned from Twitter. How else is a scorned pharma bro to let the world know that he's still around and in possession of a $2 million Wu-Tang Clan album?
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