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Martin Shkreli's Career And His Position At Turing Pharmaceuticals

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Before discussing Turing Pharmaceuticals, LLC., it is important to fully understand the history of Martin Shkreli’s career and his position at Turing Pharmaceuticals, as they have a causal significance in the development of the scandal.

1983: Martin Shkreli was born and raised in a working class family in Brooklyn, New York.

2000: At the age of 17, Shkreli interned at the Wall Street hedge fund Cramer, Berkowitz and Company. While interning at the hedge fund, Shkreli recommended short selling biotech stocks. Short selling is a trading strategy that seeks to capitalize on the anticipated decline of a security. Opportunely, the company profited, and Shkreli worked at the hedge fund until 2005.

2006: Shkreli started Elea Capital Management.

2007: The Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers sued Elea Capital Management for failing to pay a put option, essentially a bet that the market would fall. Lehman Brothers won a $2.3 million default judgment in the lawsuit. Luckily for Shkreli, Lehman Brothers collapsed from bankruptcy before they collected on the ruling against Elea Capital Management.

2009: Shkreli launched MSMB Capital Management with his friend Marek Biestek where he continued to short sell biotech companies and berated those companies online.

2011: In February, Shkreli founded Retrophin, a pharmaceutical company. That same month, MSMB Capital Management made a bad bet shorting a biotech company called Orexigen Therapeutics. MSMB lost $7 million and

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