{"id":4439,"date":"2016-02-05T09:03:12","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T17:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/drug-exec-takes-the-fifth-on-capitol-hill-angers-lawmakers\/"},"modified":"2016-02-05T09:03:12","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T17:03:12","slug":"drug-exec-takes-the-fifth-on-capitol-hill-angers-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/drug-exec-takes-the-fifth-on-capitol-hill-angers-lawmakers\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug exec takes the Fifth on Capitol Hill, angers lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 Infuriating members of Congress, a smirking Martin Shkreli took the Fifth at a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday when asked about his jacking up of drug prices, then promptly went on Twitter and insulted his questioners as \u201cimbeciles.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brash, 32-year-old entrepreneur who has been vilified as the new face of pharmaceutical industry greed was summoned by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating soaring prices for critical medicines.<\/p>\n

Four times, he intoned: \u201cOn the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to answer your question.\u201d<\/p>\n

At another point, he said: \u201cI intend to follow the advice of my counsel and not yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers erupted. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, told Shkreli to wipe the smirk off his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cI call this money blood money … coming out of the pockets of hardworking Americans,\u201d he said, as Shkreli sat through the lecture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you are smiling, but I am very serious, sir,\u201d Cummings said. \u201cI truly believe you can become a force of tremendous good. All I ask is that you reflect on it. No, I don\u2019t ask, I beg that you reflect on it. \u201c<\/p>\n

The former hedge fund manager with a frat-boy swagger has been reviled in recent months for buying Daraprim, the only approved drug for a rare and sometimes deadly parasitic infection, and then unapologetically raising its price more than fiftyfold.<\/p>\n

Shkreli is out on $5 million bail after being arrested in New York in December on securities-fraud charges unrelated to the price increase.<\/p>\n

He was dismissed less than an hour into the hearing, but not before Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, shouted down a request by Shkreli\u2019s attorney to speak. Lawmakers instead took turns denouncing his conduct and attitude.<\/p>\n

Minutes after he left \u2014 and even before the hearing had ended \u2014 Shkreli thumbed his nose at the committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cHard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government,\u201d the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals tweeted.<\/p>\n

Shkreli\u2019s attorney Benjamin Brafman later said in his defense: \u201cHe meant no disrespect, but in truth, statements made by some of the members of the committee were wrong, unfair and difficult to listen to without responding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also appearing before the lawmakers were Turing\u2019s chief commercial officer and the interim CEO of Canada\u2019s largest drugmaker, Valeant Pharmaceuticals.<\/p>\n

Documents from Valeant and Turing show they have made a practice of buying and then dramatically raising prices for low-cost drugs given to patients with life-threatening conditions such as heart disease, AIDS and cancer.<\/p>\n

The two companies\u2019 executives insisted they are committed to ensuring that cost isn\u2019t a deterrent for patients who need the drugs.<\/p>\n

With Shkreli mum, it was up to Turing\u2019s Nancy Retzlaff to defend the Daraprim price rise. She said about 3,000 people are treated with Daraprim, and only 25 percent are covered by commercial insurance. She added that the overall impact of the drug on the budget of commercial health plans \u201cis very, very small.\u201d<\/p>\n

Documents show how executives at both companies planned to maximize profits while fending off negative publicity.<\/p>\n

As early as last May, Turing planned to turn Daraprim into a $200-million-a-year drug by dramatically increasing its price, according to documents obtained by the committee. Turing bought the 60-year-old drug in August for $55 million.<\/p>\n

Shkreli said in an email to one contact: \u201cWe raised the price from $1,700 per bottle to $75,000. Should be a very handsome investment for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the company also warned in an internal memo of a possible backlash from advocates for HIV patients.<\/p>\n

As for Valeant, documents indicate the company believed it could repeatedly raise the prices of Nitropress and Isuprel without repercussions because the drugs are administered by hospitals, which are less price-sensitive than consumers.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Business Writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Infuriating members of Congress, a smirking Martin Shkreli took the Fifth at a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday when asked about his jacking up of drug prices, then promptly went on Twitter and insulted his questioners as \u201cimbeciles.\u201d The brash, 32-year-old entrepreneur who has been vilified as the new face of pharmaceutical industry greed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":4440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4439"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}