Pharma bro Martin Shkreli has ‘no assets’ and hasn’t paid $2m in legal fees, firm says

Law firm says still owed $2.04m, seeks to drop former exec

Infamous “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli has “no assets” and his former company has stopped paying the disgraced executive’s enormous legal fees, Reuters reports.

According to law firm Duane Morris LLP, neither Phoenixus AG nor Shkreli himself have been able to compensate the firm an alleged $2.04m that’s owed, since an insurance policy covering the legal fees ran out in October.

They’ve asked a US court in a Tuesday filing to stop representing Shkreli, after defending him against previous anti-trust charges.

Shkreli, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence on fraud charges, did not oppose the move.

The businessman, 39, gained national notoriety after raising by over 40 times the price of an anti-parasitic drug mainly used by those with HIV/AIDs, then appearing unrepentant when criticised.

The strategy forced “many patients and physicians to make difficult and risky decisions for the treatment of life-threatening diseases,” the New York attorney general’s office said in a news release this year.

This January, in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission and seven states, a federal judge banned him for life from the drug industry, and ordered him to pay $64.6m, ruling that Shkreli had conspired to keep generic versions of the drug off the market.

Shkreli has also been banned from ever serving as an officer or director in a public company.

He is eligible for release in November.

The Independent has contacted Phoenixus and Duane Morris for comment.