Fed­er­al judge Kiyo Mat­sumo­to in a Brook­lyn court to­day sen­tenced Mar­tin Shkre­li to 7 years on three felony fraud con­vic­tions, end­ing a lengthy pub­lic spec­ta­cle in which the biotech ex­ec man­aged to re­peat­ed­ly en­rage the pub­lic over his drug pric­ing schemes. He was con­vict­ed, though, on charges re­lat­ed to ly­ing to in­vestors in his hedge funds.

Shkre­li’s at­tor­ney, Ben Braf­man, had waged a skill­ful cam­paign to guard the de­fi­ant young ex­ec, who, af­ter mak­ing bail, wound up back in prison await­ing sen­tenc­ing af­ter the judge was an­gered by Shkre­li’s bizarre of­fer of a $5,000 boun­ty on Hillary Clin­ton’s hair. The judge al­lowed 6 months cred­it for time served, leav­ing a long stretch for Shkre­li be­hind bars.

Min­utes be­fore the sen­tenc­ing, Braf­man ar­gued the gov­ern­ment’s re­quest for 15 years was in­ap­pro­pri­ate, call­ing it “dra­con­ian.” Braf­man said Shkre­li “may be bril­liant in cer­tain mat­ters,” but “lacks cer­tain so­cial skills.” He plead­ed with the judge not to rule harsh­ly on Shkre­li “just for be­ing Mar­tin Shkre­li.”

Mat­sumo­to as­sured Braf­man that Shkre­li’s so­cial me­dia pres­ence — and the mat­ter of drug pric­ing — were not is­sues for her.

“He be­haved re­spect­ful­ly in court,” she said.

In his wrap-up, Braf­man last­ly pled that the judge re­con­sid­er the lev­el of se­cu­ri­ty Shkre­li should be jailed in.

Def: When you sen­tence Mr. Shkre­li, it’s re­al prison. De­spite fact he some­times says stu­pid things. At end of day, he doesn’t be­long there, and doesn’t be­long there for sig­nif­i­cant amt of time. #PharmaBro #Shkre­li @wcbs880

— Ethan Harp (@EthanHarp­News) March 9, 2018

When the gov­ern­ment was up to lay its case against Shkre­li, they did it suc­cinct­ly.

Govt: Shkre­li is a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal, we didn’t say it was be­cause he was a lit­tle off or strange. He was con­vict­ed of 3 of 4 fraud schemes. #PharmaBro #Shkre­li @wcbs880

— Ethan Harp (@EthanHarp­News) March 9, 2018

In short, they called Shkre­li’s de­fense ab­surd, es­pe­cial­ly the part about spar­ing him for sci­ence’s sake.

Govt: This talk of him hav­ing po­ten­tial. A sig­nif­i­cant term in prison won’t de­ny the world of cures to child­hood dis­eases. #PharmaBro #Shkre­li @wcbs880

— Ethan Harp (@EthanHarp­News) March 9, 2018

Shkre­li him­self made his last state­ments, call­ing his con­duct both neg­li­gent and stu­pid.

#Shkre­li: “I still have work to do… I’m here bc of my gross, stu­pid neg­li­gent mis­takes I made at MSMB. This woul dbe a good time to apol­o­gize to all the in­vestors of MSMB.” His voice break­ing: “I’m ter­ri­bly sor­ry I lost your trust. You de­serve bet­ter.”

— Meg Tir­rell (@megtir­rell) March 9, 2018

#Shkre­li: There was no gov­ern­ment con­spir­a­cy to take down Mar­tin Shkre­li. I took down Mar­tin Shkre­li.

— Meg Tir­rell (@megtir­rell) March 9, 2018

Dur­ing the sen­tenc­ing, Mat­sumo­to said she as­sumed Shkre­li would ap­peal any sen­tence he was giv­en, and Braf­man con­firmed lat­er that he would ap­peal.

Im­age: Court­room sketch of Mar­tin Shkre­li and his lawyer Ben Braf­man. AP IM­AGES

It was great getting back to a live ESMO conference/webinar in Paris followed by a live pop-up event for the Endpoints 11 in Boston. We’re staying on the road in October with our return for a live/streaming EUBIO22 in London.

Silicon Valley Bank’s Nooman Haque and I are once again jumping back into the thick of it with a slate of virtual and live events on October 12. I’ll get the ball rolling with a virtual fireside chat with Novo Nordisk R&D chief Marcus Schindler, covering their pipeline plans and BD work.

Gilead is mounting its counterfeit drug lawsuit, naming two “kingpins” and a complex network of conspirators who allegedly sold imitation bottles of its HIV meds, some of which ended up in US pharmacies.

The pharma giant on Wednesday provided an update on what it called a “large-scale, sophisticated counterfeiting conspiracy,” accusing two new defendants of “leading and orchestrating” a scheme to sell hundreds of millions of dollars in illegitimate drugs posing as meds such as Biktarvy and Descovy.

The US Senate passed via unanimous consent on Thursday afternoon a bipartisan bill that would eliminate a federal mandate for animal testing for new drugs.

Touted as a much-needed modernization of FDA’s rules, co-sponsor Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have said the bill will stop lots of needless suffering of animals.

Today the Senate unanimously passed my bipartisan FDA Modernization Act 2.0 to end animal testing mandates! This is an important step toward innovation and ending the needless suffering and death of animal test subjects. pic.twitter.com/vGpCCdpuOf

The European Medicines Agency said Thursday that it’s launching a new pilot program to help academic and other nonprofit researchers developing advanced therapy medicinal products, which includes cell and gene therapies.

Academics have proven to be enormously useful in feeding new products, like chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies first developed by Memorial Sloan Kettering, and ushered to the market by biopharma companies. Jean Bennett, formerly with the University of Pennsylvania, also saw her research lead to the approval of gene therapy Luxturna, which Roche now owns.