Martin Shkreli is removed as CEO from another company, KaloBios

Martin Shkreli, who was arrested last week on securities fraud charges, has been ousted from his second pharmaceutical company.

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, a California biotechnology company that Shkreli gained control of in November, announced Monday that he had been terminated as chief executive and had resigned from his seat on the board Thursday, the day he was arrested.

Last week, Shkreli was removed as chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, a privately held company in New York that he co-founded late last year.

The charges against Shkreli are unconnected with his management of either Turing or KaloBios. He is accused of using money from his first pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, to pay off money-losing investors in his hedge funds.

Shkreli, 32, who is free on $5 million bail, maintains that he is innocent and will be vindicated.

KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, a faltering drug company whose shares skyrocketed last month after the reviled former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli disclosed a huge stake, has fired him as CEO.

Shkreli resigned as the head of Turing Pharmaceuticals last week, a day after being arrested on securities fraud charges unrelated to his business practices in the pharmaceutical field. Turing, under Shkreli, was widely criticized for buying rights to a relatively cheap, decades-old treatment for a life-threatening infection, then hiking its price by more than 5,000 percent.

KaloBios said Monday in a printed statement that it terminated Shkreli last week. The South San Francisco, California, company has been attempting to develop drugs to treat cancer and leukemia. Its shares tumbled 70 percent in January after its drug for lung infections failed in testing.

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 8:36 AM with the headline "Martin Shkreli is removed as CEO from another company, KaloBios."