So lawyers do poetry now?

[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]Remember Martin Shrkeli? He launched Retrophin, a company that acquired rights to drugs for rare diseases, then ramped up their prices. One example was Thiola, used to treat a disease causing kidney stones. After it came into the Retrophin portfolio its price shot up from $1.50 to $30 a pill. Then, February this year, Shrkeli left Retrophin to found Turing Pharmaceuticals. [/ezcol_1half_end]

This September word broke of a letter to Turing from the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the HIV Medicine Association. It asked why the price of a dose of its HIV drug Daraprim had increased by 5,500% from $13.50 to $750. The story went viral and Shrkeli became “most hated man in America” but we didn’t know the half of it. It seems he was already on borrowed time.

On Thursday he was arrested by the FBI for allegedly telling investors in his hedge fund, back in 2010, that (a) he had a well respected industry auditing firm when he had nothing of the sort, (b) his MSMB Capital Management fund had returned 38% when it had lost 18%, and (c) the firm had assets of $35 million when it had less than $1,000. Couldn’t happen to a nicer chap, you say, but it gets better. While being fingerprinted he learned that his lawyer, Harland Dorrinson, was raising his fees. By how much? 5,000 percent.