Pharma Bro Wants A Crack At This (And Out Of Prison)

Nobody shed a tear when Martin Shkreli, the Pharma Bro who price gouged a life-saving drug for AIDS patients and babies by over 5000%, was sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud. But that was in 2017. Now, in these dire times when an apocalyptic virus ravages the lands, perhaps we should set aside our past grudges and realize that to defeat a viral monster, a pharma monster might just be the right tool for the job. And Martin Shkreli desperately wants to be that tool.

Leave it to the douche who tried to sell a $750 pill and spent two million dollars on a Wu-Tang Clan album to overestimate his value as an evil genius. In a scientific paper that reads more like a desperate LinkedIn profile, the disgraced huckster is asking to be given a three-month furlough from prison to help develop a treatment for the coronavirus. If granted permission to assist research, Shkreli promises that he has no intention "to profit in any way, shape or form from coronavirus-related treatments." But that's not true. First of all, his tongue will benefit from taking a three-month break as the cell block toilet brush. Secondly, Shkreli, of all people, will get to escape one of the most dangerous coronavirus hotbeds in the country for the safety of a sterile lab.

In return, Shkreli offers his services as, according to Shkreli, "one of the few executives experienced in ALL aspects of drug development." And while he did like to put his name on everything his company produced, the only actual experience Shkreli has is in business admin and a brief stint whispering lies in the ears of Theoden, son of Thengel. He has no degree in any scientific field, his drug patents are easily replicated by a bunch of bored teens and the closest that Shkreli himself has come to developing cures has been curing women of their sex drive by showing them his pallid penis. In fact, his only marketable skill seems to be keeping precious medicine out of the hands of poor people and I'm suddenly amazed that they haven't made him Republican Coronavirus Tsar just for that.

So who knows, this might not be just the no-hope groveling of a scared creep. President Trump is getting desperate, and he has pardoned way bigger monsters than Shkreli. And since eternal tween Jared Kushner is shitting the bed again, why not give a shot to the guy who looks like the Kushner twin they kept in the basement and fed fish heads?

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Top Image: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform