it takes a real piece of shit to play devil's advocate in support of this guy, but................................................ pharmaceutical companies have been exploiting loopholes in FDA regulations that allow them to buy obscure drugs and jack up the price for years. the problem is that this guy is such a natural piece of shit that it's easy for big pharma to put a few lights years of distance between themselves and him. and it makes for such a good narrative that shkreli got tripped up in his own malfeasance and will probably go to jail, so now this chapter is closed. except it isn't, since turing pharmaceuticals has a new CEO and still owns the rights to daraprim... and valeant (a company shkreli tried to short before they made a bunch of money doing exactly the thing he later did at retrophin and turing) is still doing this left and right, but now because of shkreli, no one is looking at them. (coincidentally, valeant makes the $37-per-pill antidepressant that i take. the only way i can afford it is that my job offers fantastic health coverage and i only pay $50 per month. if i wasn't so lucky, i'd have to settle for the generic, which gives me unbearable ringing in my ears.)
long story short: big pharma is a putrid beast, and shkreli is a pimple on their back, not a bad apple.