Call it a case of tempting fate or instant karma—the cosmos sought its inevitable revenge when Martin Shkreli, the hip-hop-loving, drug-price-inflating biotech executive, was arrested, indicted, and perp-walked on Dec. 17. But the activities that got him crosswise with the feds aren’t what the 32-year-old Twitter addict with the sardonic smirk will be remembered for. What’s so troubling and important about his story is that the way he ran his drug companies—the amoral but probably legal business plans he employed—were of a piece with mainstream pharmaceutical marketing.
