Martin Shkreli, who has been nicknamed “Pharma Bro,” is spending time in jail after enriching himself by jacking up prices of life-saving medicine.
Shkreli, who now resides at the Federal Correctional Complex in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, has urged federal prosecutors to release him from jail because he claims that he alone can come up with a cure for COVID-19.
“I have always said that if focused and left in a lab, Martin could help cure cancer,” his attorney, Ben Brafman, said in a statement, Patch reports. “Maybe he can help the scientific community better understand this terrible virus.”
Shkreli says, “I am one of the few executives experienced in ALL aspects of drug development,” and adds, “I do not expect to profit in any way, shape or form from coronavirus-related treatments.”
According to reports, Shkreli tried to be released for three months to work on a cure for the coronavirus, but federal prosecutors are strongly opposing his request.
Attorneys for the Eastern District of New York call his claim he could cure coronavirus “delusional self-aggrandizing behavior,” Patch adds.
“Shkreli’s ‘belief that he can develop a cure for COVID-19, something that has so far eluded the best medical and scientific minds in the world working around the clock, is not only a practice in wild and completely unfounded speculation, but is indicative of the same kind of delusional self-aggrandizing behavior that underlies the defendant’s conduct,’” prosecutors wrote in a memorandum.
RELATED: Outrage Grows As Medical Professionals Blast Mike Pence Over ‘Selfish Display’ At Mayo Clinic
