Martin Shkreli has taken to Twitter to combat media backlash after news broke that his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, had raised the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
The medicine, Daraprim, which has been on the market for 62 years, is the standard of care for a food-borne illness called called toxoplasmosis caused by a parasite that can severely affect those with compromised immune systems. Turing bought the rights to the drug last month and almost immediately raised prices.
The 32-year-old quoted Eminem to combat the backlash.
Shkreli has already dethroned the dentist who killed Cecil the Lion as the most-hated man in America, the Daily Beast reported and Twitter users have no problem in expressing how they feel.
One Twitter user wrote, "Your daily reminder that Martin Shkreli wants money so much he's depriving poor ppl of a cheap pill for a common AIDS complication."
John Carroll, the editor of Fierce Biotech, a daily newsletter about the industry, was one of the first to ask Shkreli directly to explain the move.
In a hot-headed Twitter exchange over the weekend, Shkreli declined to provide additional information and instead launched into a series of personal attacks against Carroll - calling him "irrelevant" and someone who doesn't "think logically."
Carroll tweeted, "Let's see if we can get a statement from @MartinShkreli. Martin, your co. just hiked the price of an old drug - new to you - by 5000%. Why?"
To which Shkreli responded, "@JohnCFierce You are such a moron."
Others also took to Twitter to express their outrage.
Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton wrote "I'm so disgusted that this hedge funder raised the price of an AIDS medication by 5000%!."
In response to some of the backlash, Shkreli said "Media: sorry, no more interviews. I have a busy and important job. I've said what I needed to and anyone interested can view those pieces."
This isn't Shkreli's first price-hiking biotech rodeo. A year ago as the CEO of Retrophin, his company acquired Thiola and planned to increase its price by over 20 times.