Martin Shkreli has been called the “most hated man in America.” The businessman was criticized last year after his company sharply raised the price of a life-saving drug. Studies have shown that the drug, Daraprim, can help patients with AIDS and some kinds of cancer. Daraprim is used all over the world. Last year, Shkreli’s company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the cost of the drug from $13.50 a pill to $700 a pill. Daraprim once sold for $1 a pill. Shkreli defended the price increase as legal. He has said the move was designed to increase profits for investors. On Thursday, Shkreli appeared at a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. House members wanted to ask him why the company raised the price of the medicine. Shkreli chose to use his Fifth Amendment rights and did not answer the lawmakers’ questions.
