Turing Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli resigns after securities fraud arrest

ByEyewitness News WABC logo

Friday, December 18, 2015

martin shkreli protest new york city — Carrying an image of Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO Martin Shkreli in a makeshift cat litter pan, AIDS activists and others protest in New York City (FILE)
Craig Ruttle-AP

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, New York (WABC) -- Martin Shkreli, the entrepreneur charged by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn with securities fraud, resigned Friday as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.

Shkreli is a free man after he was arrested and pleaded not guilty Thursday. Shkreli posted a $5 million bond to be released.

Board Chairman Ron Tilles will become interim CEO.

(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Shkreli's charged with losing investors' money through bad trades -- then taking $11 million from his former company to pay disgruntled clients. Turing sparked an angry backlash earlier this year after raising the price of Daraprim, the only approved treatment for a rare parasitic infection called toxoplasmosis that mainly strikes pregnant women, cancer patients and AIDS patients, by 5,000 percent.

Turing ended up reducing what it charges hospitals for Daraprim by as much as 50 percent. Most patients' copayments will be capped at $10 or less a month. But insurance companies will be stuck with the bulk of the tab, potentially driving up future treatment and insurance costs.