The court of New York’s Southern District upheld the ban and clarified what Shkreli is barred from: not only working in the industry but also discussing it in his blog. On whether the ban also applies to working in pharmaceutical research or for an advertising company that helps with drug marketing, Judge Denise Cote’s answer was unequivocal: the injunction defines a pharmaceutical company as “any entity engaged in the research, development, manufacture, commercialization, or marketing of any drug product or API.”

After further petitions from the Shkreli legal team, Cote clarified that the former CEO whose social media handle was “’pharma bro” was also prohibited from “participating in the formulation, determination or direction of any business decisions of any pharmaceutical company.” The terms of the punishment, she said, “are needed to control the very real risk that he will continue to participate in the industry by working through others employed in the industry, as he has done while incarcerated.”

As to the blog, the court said that while the US right to freedom of speech deserves great protection, Shkreli’s violations of antitrust laws “have lost for him the right to speak publicly about the pharmaceutical industry when such speech is uttered to influence the management or business of a pharmaceutical company.” Asked if the court order requiring him to sell his shares in Vyera Pharmaceuticals’ parent company, Phoenixus, violated his constitutional rights against self-incrimination, Cote said it does not.

In January, the same court ordered Shkreli to pay $64.6 million in disgorgement related to money he earned by suppressing competition after hiking the price of the toxoplasmosis drug. It also ordered Turing successor Vyera to pay up to $40 million to resolve charges that it engaged in anti-competitive practices to fight off generics and maintain monopoly profits from its more than 4,000% overnight price hike.

Author: Dede Williams, Freelance Journalist