Martin Shkreli is back in the pharmaceuticals, sort of. Despite his ban lifetime ban from the industry, he has created a new Web3 initiative called Druglike, that uses his own cryptocurrency, Martin Shkreli Inu.
The drug discovery platform Druglike, according to its description, will "democratise the costs, access, and rewards of computational drug discovery".
And the cryptocurrency behind this super-serious drug Web3 company? Martin Shkreli Inu.
Martin Shkreli Launches Druglike Web3 Platform
Shkreli, popularly known as "Pharma Bro" is back in the news after launching a new drug discovery platform dubbed Druglike.
Shkreli, 39, is an ex-hedge fund manager and a convicted felon known for raising the price of Daraprim drug from an average price of $13.50 to a whopping $750.
After serving in prison for four years, Shkreli is now back again. This time, he is exploring the new Web3 antics by launching a new business venture called Druglike.
Per its press release, the venture "claims to make it easier for people to discover new medicines, and to share in the profits when they have done so, with the ultimate goal of lowering the costs to medicine."
According to Shkreli, druglike intends to act as a platform that will "disrupt the economics of the drug business".
In spite of Shkreli's past, the venture claims it will supply cost-effective medicines en masse. It especially notes a focus on "underserved and underfunded communities, such as those focused on rare diseases or in developing markets."
What Is Martin Shkreli Inu?
Along with launching his exclusive business venture Druglike, Shkreli has also announced his decision to launch his meme coin.
Dubbed Martin Shkreli Inu (MSI), the MSI price is currently up 47.78% in the past 24 hours. MSI currently sits at $0.00002696. According to one report, Shkreli owns 16% of the supply.
Martin Shkreli Inu is currently only available on Uniswap.
The term Inu comes from the plethora of cryptocurrencies imitating Shiba Inu's success.
Crypto Twitter Reacts To Martin Shkreli's Web3 Initiative
Martin Shkreli's Druglike and MSI venture has garnered a lot of attention online. Here, users could not help but express scepticism about Shkreli's ironic crypto venture.
Many users were quick to mock Shkreli's web3 venture, addressing it as a farce.
Users on Reddit took a similar opinion. In r/CryptoCurrency, one user questioned the need for this decentralised drug platform, which could be more inefficient than normal research.
"A search that would take an hour on any old GPU, will instead take weeks of extremely inefficient computation, convoluted by these really weird and artificial hoops you have created," one user posted.
Others questioned how this drug discovery platform would comply with his lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry.