The drug company CEO under fire for boosting the cost of a decades-old medicine by 50-fold defended the decision, calling the treatment a bargain at $750 a pill. 
 
 Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager who is now chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, was called out by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Clinton tweeted that she would soon release a plan to combat the high cost of prescription drugs. Biotechnology stocks fell after her comment. 
 
 Clinton’s comment on Twitter sent the 144-member Nasdaq Biotechnology Index down 4.7 percent to 3,556.58 at 1:08 p.m. in New York, the biggest intraday drop since Aug. 24. Health-care stocks were the worst-performing subgroup on the broader Nasdaq index. 
 
 "Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous," Clinton tweeted at 10:56 a.m. "Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on." 
 
 Turing’s price increase risks making Shkreli’s company a poster child for aggressive pricing by the industry, especially after drugmakers have already been criticized for the cost of medicines to treat cancer, hepatitis C and other conditions. 
 
 Clinton was responding to reports about how Turing Pharmaceuticals in August acquired an older antibiotic drug, Daraprim, and subsequently raised the price by more than 50-fold. 
 
 Shkreli said the drug, which once sold for $13.50 per pill and for which Turing now charges $750, is still a bargain even at the new higher price. Patients typically take the drug for at least several weeks. 
 
 "This drug saves your life for $50,000," Shkreli said in an interview in New York. "It is still a bargain for health insurers. At this price, it is a no-brainer." The drug is very inexpensive for Turing to manufacture, Shkreli said during an interview Monday with Bloomberg TV, though there are other administrative and regulatory costs for the company. 
 
 About 2,000 Americans use Daraprim each year, which treats the disease toxoplasmosis. While the parasite that causes the disease is common, it doesn’t usually cause symptoms, and typically only needs to be treated in patients with compromised immune systems. 
 
 Many drugs for rare diseases have to be taken continuously for years, and cost $100,000 to $500,000 a year. By contrast, Daraprim treats patients in about six weeks, limiting the cost, Shkreli said. 
 
 Higher Costs? 
 
 Joel Gallant, a doctor and the former chairman of the HIV Medicine Association, disputed Shkreli’s comments about how the drug is used and for how long. HIV patients are particularly susceptible to toxoplasmosis, and many patients remain on lower doses for months or years. 
 
 "This is hundreds of thousands of dollars," Gallant said, referring to the cost for HIV patients with the disease. 
 
 "They are not in the game for biomedical research," he said in an interview. "They are getting exclusive rights to a cheap drug and raising the price because they can." Because of the cost, hospitals may not be able to stock the drug, causing delays in treatment Gallant said. 
 
 Shkreli didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail and telephone call requesting additional comment. 
 
 Aggressive Pricing 
 
 “We can understand why examples like these raise questions," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, which represents drug company interests. "However, Turing is not a member company and we are not in the position to comment on their product or pricing." He called Turing’s price for Daraprim "the exception and not the rule." 
 
 A drug price plan could be a part of a group of health proposals from Clinton, who said Sunday on the television program "Face the Nation" that she had several ideas on health care. 
 
 "I’m going to address them this week, starting with how we’re going to try to control the cost of skyrocketing prescription drugs," she said. "It’s something that I hear about wherever I go." 
 
 The biotechnology index was already vulnerable and Clinton’s tweet was likely a major factor in the decline, said John Fraunces, portfolio manager of Turner Medical Sciences Fund, said by phone. "Pricing is a theme that seems to be of growing concern in the health-care area, ourselves included." 
 
 Terry Haines, a political analyst with Evercore ISI, didn’t think Clinton could actually have an impact. "Regardless of what any Democratic candidate says about drug pricing, his or her ability to make that a reality as president is close to zero." Haines said in a note to clients that he doubted a drug pricing proposal could get through Congress. 
 
 Research 
 
 Shkreli said that unlike many other drugmakers that also take huge price increases on old drugs, his company is investing in research to come up with better drug for toxoplasmosis. Researchers at Turing have identified several new candidate drugs, one of which could begin human trials next year, he said. He said he wants to come out with a better version of Daraprim with higher cure rates or fewer side effects. 
 
 Gallant, the HIV doctor, said Daraprim is already highly effective in combination with other drugs. "No one has been clamoring" for more toxoplasmosis drug research, he said. 
 
 Turing "is being criticized for trying to stay alive," Shkreli said. "It is very misplaced anger." At the old price, there was no way to turn a profit, he said. 
 
 Shkreli said the company had put assistance systems in place to make sure that all patients who need the drug can get it even if their insurance company won’t pay for it. 
 
 For more, read this next: 
 
 • QuickTake: Access to Drugs ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Turing Pharmaceuticals boss Martin Shkreli had previously defended the price riise 
 
 Judging by social media, Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, may be the most hated man in America right now. 
 
 He's been called a "morally bankrupt sociopath", a "scumbag" a "garbage monster" and "everything that is wrong with capitalism." And those are some of the tamer comments. 
 
 So how did a rap music-loving, former hedge fund manager suddenly become the target of online ridicule and even death threats? 
 
 His company recently acquired the rights to Daraprim. Developed in the 1950s, the drug is the best treatment for a relatively rare parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis. People with weakened immune systems, such as Aids patients, have come to rely on the drug, which until recently cost about $13.50 (£8.80) a dose. 
 
 But Mr Shkreli announced he was raising the price to $750 a pill. The more than 5,000% increase and his brash defence of the decision has made him a pariah among patients-rights groups, politicians and hundreds of Twitter users. 
 
 Other drugs companies have made similar moves raising the price of niche products, but few have so publicly and so unapologetically answered critics. 
 
 The backlash became so pitched on Tuesday that Mr Shkreli agreed to lower the price of Daraprim to an "affordable level". 
 
 Image copyright Twitter Image caption Martin Shkreli, seen here in an August Twitter post, has aggressively answered critics 
 
 Humble beginnings 
 
 Martin Shkreli, the son of Albanian and Croatian immigrants, grew up in a working-class community in Brooklyn, New York. He skipped several grades in school and received a degree in business from New York's Baruch College in 2004. 
 
 At 17, he began his first internship at Cramer Berkowitz & Co, the hedge fund founded by television personality Jim Cramer. 
 
 In 2006, Mr Shkreli started his own hedge fund, Elea Capital Management. 
 
 The fund closed a year later after a $2.3m lawsuit from Lehman Brothers, which collapsed before it could collect on the ruling. 
 
 After Elea, Mr Shkreli started MSMB Capital Management in 2008. The fund would be his launch pad for founding biotech firms including Turing. 
 
 Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Shkreli moved into the pharmaceutical industry after working as a hedge fund manager 
 
 A rocky start in pharmaceuticals 
 
 Turing was not Mr Shkreli's first foray into the pharmaceutical industry. In 2011, he founded biotech firm Retrophin, with the goal of focusing on medicines for rare diseases. 
 
 He was ousted as head of the company in 2014 amidst allegations he improperly handled legal settlements. 
 
 A year later the company filed a $65m lawsuit that claimed Mr Shkreli created Retrophin and took it public simply to pay off investors in his old hedge fund, MSMB when the fund went under. 
 
 Mr Shkreli has denied the accusations. "They are sort of concocting this wild and crazy and unlikely story to swindle me out of the money," he told the New York Times. 
 
 On August 4, 2017, a jury found Mr Shkreli guilty of three of eight counts, including securities fraud, in a criminal case brought by US prosecutors. But they cleared him of allegations that he had looted Retrophin to make payments for the hedge funds. The civil suit brought by Retrophin remained pending as of 4 August. 
 
 Image caption Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to Daraprim in August 
 
 A second chance 
 
 Turing Pharmaceuticals was launched in February 2015 after Mr Shkreli was forced out of Retrophin. 
 
 The business claims its goal is to focus on treatments for serious diseases for which there are limited options. "We are dedicated to helping patients, who often have no effective treatment options," a statement on Turing's website said. 
 
 The company only has two products on the market Daraprim and Vecamyl, which treats hypertension. 
 
 Mr Shkreli has argued the Daraprim price increase was warranted because the drug is highly specialised; he likened the Daraprim to an Aston Martin previously being sold at the price of a bicycle. The additional profits he said will be used to make improvements to the 62-year-old drug recipe. 
 
 Image copyright Twitter Image caption One of Shkreli's first tweets about the Dramaprim controversy 
 
 Mr Shkreli did not take the criticism of his company's actions lightly. 
 
 On Sunday, he sent out a hostile tweet accusing the media of singling him out. "And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me. So I point one back at em, but not the index or pinkie," he wrote, quoting an Eminem song. 
 
 His tone later softened following several TV interviews where he claimed the profits of the drug would be used to create a better product. 
 
 All of the negative attention may have finally had an effect on Mr Shkreli. 
 
 His Twitter account, which had sparred with critics for days, went dark and then Mr Shkreli agreed to lower the price. 
 
 "We've agreed to lower the price on Daraprim to a point that is more affordable and is able to allow the company to make a profit, but a very small profit," he told ABC News. "We think these changes will be welcomed." ||||| Shkreli, Drug Price Gouger, Denies Fraud and Posts Bail Arrested Thursday, accused of Ponzi-like scheme 
 
 Martin Shkreli, center, and attorney Evan Greebel exit the federal building in Manhattan where the FBI is located on Dec. 17, 2015. Photographer: John Taggart/Bloomberg 
 
 Martin Shkreli, a boastful pharmaceutical executive who came under withering criticism for price gouging vital drugs, denied securities fraud charges on Thursday following an early morning arrest, and was freed on a $5 million bond. 
 
 While the 32-year-old has earned a rare level of infamy for his brazenness in business and his personal life, what he was charged with had nothing to do with skyrocketing drug prices. He is accused of repeatedly losing money for investors and lying to them about it, illegally taking assets from one of his companies to pay off debtors in another. 
 
 “Shkreli essentially ran his company like a Ponzi scheme where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said at a press conference. 
 
 Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Shkreli at his Midtown Manhattan apartment at about 6:30 a.m. and forced him to walk through a gaggle of photographers outside FBI headquarters. 
 
 Evan Greebel, a New York lawyer, who is alleged in the federal indictment to have helped Shkreli in his schemes, was also arrested and charged. Like Shkreli, he pleaded not guilty, and he was freed on a $1 million bond. Both men and their lawyers declined to comment after their court appearance. 
 
 A spokeswoman for Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP where Greebel worked during the time in question, declined comment. A spokeswoman for Kaye Scholer where he works now, said the firm has launched an internal investigation. 
 
 Read the full text of the indictment here 
 
 In the federal indictment and a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission, authorities say Shkreli began losing money and lying to investors from the time he began managing money. In his mid-20s, he got nine investors to place $3 million with him and at one point he had only $331. 
 
 Securities fraud is hardly unheard of on Wall Street and the amounts involved here are nowhere near on the scale of Bernie Madoff. But Shkreli’s case has drawn such attention because of his defiant price-gouging and his own up-by-the-bootstraps history. 
 
 The son of immigrants from Albania and Croatia who did janitorial work and raised him and his brothers in working-class Brooklyn, Shkreli seemed at first to embody the American dream and then to mock it. After dropping out of an elite Manhattan high school, he worked as an intern for Jim Cramer’s hedge fund as a 17-year-old and quickly impressed with his ability to call stocks. He created hedge funds, taught himself biology and, after earning a BA at Baruch College in New York City, began hedge funds investing in biotech. 
 
 AIDS activists pour cat litter on an image of Shkreli in a makeshift cat litter pan during a protest highlighting pharmaceutical drug pricing, in front of the building that houses Turing's offices, in New York. Photographer: Craig Ruttle/AP Photo 
 
 He became famous within a certain world but entered public consciousness after he raised the price more than 55-fold for Daraprim in September from $13.50 per pill to $750. It is the preferred treatment for a parasitic condition known as toxoplasmosis, which can be deadly for unborn babies and patients with compromised immune systems including those with HIV or cancer. His company, Turing Pharmaceuticals AG, bought the drug, moved it to a closed distribution system and instantly drove the price into the stratosphere. 
 
 He drew shocked rebukes from Congress, doctors and presidential candidates, and brought public attention to the rising prices of older drugs. Donald Trump called Shkreli a “spoiled brat,” and the BBC dubbed him the “most hated man in America.” Bernie Sanders, the Democratic presidential candidate, rejected a $2,700 campaign donation from him, directing it to an HIV clinic. A spokesman said the campaign would not keep money “from this poster boy for drug company greed.” 
 
 All the criticism seemed at first to have some impact and Shkreli said he would lower the price. Then he reneged. When Hillary Clinton tried one more time last month to get him to cut the cost, he dismissed her with the tweet “lol.” At a Forbes summit in New York this month, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, he said if he could have done it over, “I probably would have raised the price higher,” adding, “My investors expect me to maximize profits.” 
 
 “The $65 million Retrophin wants from me would not dent me. I feel great. I’m licking my chops over the suits I’m going to file against them” 
 
 Shkreli did further damage to his public image with other acts and boasts. He spent millions on the only copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album that music fans are desperate to hear and then told Bloomberg Businessweek that he had no immediate plans to listen to it. He takes often to Twitter and message boards, bragging about his business strategies, musical tastes and politics; he live-streams from his office for long stretches. 
 
 The SEC complaint and federal indictment lay out a series of schemes and cover-ups carried out by Shkreli. Capers said authorities began investigating him as early as 2014. 
 
 Barely 23, he was managing hedge fund Elea Capital in New York and lost it all in 2007. Around then, a trade with Lehman Brothers ended with a $2.3 million judgment against him, prosecutors said. In 2010, he lost his clients’ $3 million investment in his new fund, MSMB Capital. 
 
 In 2011, he bet that shares of Orexigen Therapeutics Inc. would fall and wound up owing $7 million to his broker, Merrill Lynch, authorities said. He couldn’t pay, and he, an unnamed accomplice and MSMB Capital eventually extinguished the debt with a $1.35 million settlement, they said. 
 
 Part of that money came from his next firm, authorities said. After the collapse of MSMB Capital, Shkreli launched MSMB Healthcare with about $5 million from 13 investors. He paid himself “far in excess” of the agreed-upon 1 percent management fee and 20 percent profit incentive, according to the SEC. 
 
 From Wall Street Wunderkind to “Most Hated Man in America" About 2000: Age 17, Shkreli interns for Jim Cramer, of “Mad Money," and correctly predicts biotech decline. Early 2000s: Sets up hedge funds, trash-talking companies he is shorting. About 2009: Founds MSMB Capital Management, which later suffers losses on a bad trade with Merrill Lynch. February 2011: Starts Retrophin, a biotech company. September 2014: Voted out as Retrophin's CEO, Shkreli tweets that the directors are “inane." February 2015: Launches new company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, which acquires an old drug and jacks up their prices. August 2015: Retrophin sues Shkreli for $65 million, saying he used company assets to pay off hedge fund investors. September 2015: Storm erupts over Turing's price increase—from $13.50 to $750 a pill—for anti-parasitic drug Daraprim. Sept. 21, 2015: Hillary Clinton tweets “Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous. Tomorrow, I'll lay out a plan to take it on." October 2015: New York attorney general investigates the pricing and distribution of Daraprim. November 2015: A Shkreli-led group buys majority of KaloBios, presaging price increase in drug for Chagas disease. Nov. 5, 2015: To critics of his drug-pricing strategy, Shkreli tweets “lol." December 2015: News emerges that Shkreli bought the only copy of the Wu-Tang Clan's latest album. Shkreli tweets: “Within 10 years, more than half of all rap/hip-hop music will be made exclusively for me. Don't worry—I will share some of it." 
 
 Shkreli then used cash from MSMB Healthcare to invest in Retrophin, the pharmaceutical company he founded in 2011, even though it “had no products or assets,” prosecutors said. Later, he used the assets of Retrophin to repay angry investors in his hedge funds, prosecutors said. 
 
 Shkreli is confident that he will be cleared of the charges, according to a statement on his behalf. 
 
 Shkreli is particularly disappointed that his litigation with Retrophin has become a government enforcement matter, according to the statement. He also denied the charges regarding the MSMB entities, which he said involve complex accounting matters that prosecutors and the SEC fail to understand, according to the statement. 
 
 “It is no coincidence that these charges, the result of investigations which have been languishing for considerable time, have been filed at the same time of Shkreli’s high-profile, controversial and yet unrelated activities,” according to the statement. “The government suggested that Mr. Shkreli was involved in a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi victims do not make money, yet Mr. Shkreli’s investors enjoyed strong results.” 
 
 As Shkreli’s losses mounted, so did his lies. He fabricated portfolio statements and, with his lawyer’s help, deceived the SEC and outside accountants. He backdated records, manufactured a phony loan agreement between Retrophin and a hedge fund, and created sham consulting agreements with Retrophin as a way to route the company’s cash to his earlier investors. 
 
 Greebel, the arrested lawyer, made sure Retrophin’s outside accountants were unaware of Shkreli’s financial maneuvers and helped him concoct the consulting agreements used to repay the hedge fund investors, the U.S. said. 
 
 The cases mirror a lawsuit brought by Retrophin. Shkreli blithely dismissed his old company’s claims, saying, “The $65 million Retrophin wants from me would not dent me. I feel great. I’m licking my chops over the suits I’m going to file against them.” 
 
 Earlier, he had denied wrongdoing in a post on InvestorsHub after Retrophin disclosed it had received a subpoena from federal prosecutors and the preliminary findings from its own investigation of Shkreli. He called the company’s allegations “completely false, untrue at best and defamatory at worst.” 
 
 “Every transaction I’ve ever made at Retrophin was done with outside counsel’s blessing,” he said on the investment blog in February, without identifying the lawyers. 
 
 When Shkreli was working for Cramer’s firm, he was still a teenager. After recommending successful trades, Shkreli eventually set up his own hedge fund, quickly developing a reputation for trashing biotechnology stocks in online chatrooms and shorting them, to enormous profit. 
 
 Widely admired for his intellect and sharp eye, he set up Retrophin to develop drugs and acquire older pharmaceuticals that could be sold for higher profits. 
 
 Turing, which is less than a year old and has raised $90 million in financing, has followed a similar strategy with the purchase of drugs, including Daraprim. 
 
 Shkreli recently bought a majority stake in KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. after Turing received a warning from the New York attorney general that the distribution network for Daraprim may violate antitrust laws. State officials made their concerns known to Turing and Shkreli in an Oct. 12 letter obtained by Bloomberg. 
 
 KaloBios recently acquired the license for benznidazole, a standard treatment for Chagas, a deadly parasitic infection most common in South and Central America. The firm announced plans to increase the cost from a couple hundred dollars for two months to a pricing structure like that for hepatitis-C drugs, which can run to nearly $100,000 for 12 weeks. 
 
 “Some of these companies seem to act more like hedge funds than traditional pharmaceutical companies” 
 
 With the federal charges and regulatory actions, Shkreli could be banned from running a public company, which could put the future of KaloBios into question. Trading in KaloBios shares was halted after the stock fell 53 percent. It’s less clear what the impact could be on Turing, which is closely held. 
 
 Federal authorities will have to ask a judge to impose an asset freeze if they want to guarantee Shkreli doesn’t dispose of ill-gotten gains. 
 
 The charges suggest that a small group of health-care firms—ones that acquire the rights to drugs and significantly increase their prices—is drawing the scrutiny of regulators and prosecutors, with a possible chilling effect on aggressive drug-pricing strategies. 
 
 Legislators are already paying attention. A hearing of the Senate Special Committee on Aging on Dec. 9 scrutinized such tactics. 
 
 Before Shkreli started Turing, Retrophin raised the price of Thiola, used to treat a rare condition causing debilitating recurrences of kidney stones, from $1.50 a pill to $30. 
 
 “Some of these companies seem to act more like hedge funds than traditional pharmaceutical companies,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who ran the recent hearing. 
 
 George Scangos, CEO of biotechnology giant Biogen Inc., went further, saying in an interview, “Turing is to a research-based company like a loan shark is to a legitimate bank.” 
 
 (Updated with Shkreli statement.)
– The drug company CEO called the "most hated man in America right now" by the BBC says he's misunderstood—but that he'll lower the price of Daraprim in response to the firestorm of criticism. "There were mistakes made with respect to helping people understand why we took this action," Turing Pharmaceuticals chief Martin Shkreli, who raised the price of the toxoplasmosis drug from $13.50 a pill to $750, tells NBC News. "I think that it makes sense to lower the price in response to the anger that was felt by people." The 32-year-old former hedge fund boss says it's "very easy to see a large drug price increase and say, 'Gosh, those people must be gouging,'" but that drug pricing is "very hard stuff" for people to understand. Shkreli admits that the drug is cheap to make, but he says the price has to cover "the quality control, the regulatory costs, and all of the other things that come with having a drug company." Shkreli is an "odious pharma executive straight out of central casting," but his company is far from the only one buying up relatively obscure drugs and massively increasing the price, writes Dan Diamond at Forbes. The same thing has happened to dozens of other drugs over the last year, and while media attention forced Shkreli to back down, "the hard part is achieving lasting reform," he writes. (A huge increase in the price of a tuberculosis drug has also been rolled back.)