FTC, States Ask Court to Hold ‘Pharma Bro’ Shkreli in Contempt for Trading Drug Stocks

By WSJ Archiver October 13, 2026 · Edited October 14, 2026

A facts-only brief, written by a local AI model from this article in The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2026. It may contain mistakes, and it is not the article: the full story is at wsj.com.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states, including New York, filed a motion in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday seeking a contempt ruling against Martin Shkreli for allegedly violating a lifetime ban on owning pharmaceutical stocks. Regulators allege that Shkreli has held shares in over 60 drug companies since 2022 and frequently displayed his brokerage screens during livestreams, actions they claim put investors at risk. The agencies are requesting that Shkreli divest his holdings, pay a fine equal to his trading profits since February 2022 without credit for losses, and face escalating penalties or incarceration if he refuses to comply. Shkreli expressed surprise at the action, attributing it to the New York Attorney General rather than the Trump administration, while a spokesman for the Attorney General cited the public risk posed by his trading activities.

Background

A federal judge barred Shkreli from owning drug company stakes and influencing their business in early 2022, following his conviction for securities fraud and his role in raising the price of Daraprim.
The filing alleges Shkreli profited from shorting companies like Cassava Sciences after their experimental drugs failed in clinical trials, with his account balance increasing significantly following one such failure in November 2024.
Regulators state that Shkreli recently began a new trading challenge with a $10 million account in June, where he is allegedly shorting Sellas Life Sciences and predicting the failure of its leukemia study.

Read the full article at wsj.com

More from Wednesday, October 14:

by WSJ Archiver Oct 14, 2026