Martin Shkreli (right), the drug executive who raised ire with a 4,000 percent price hike, donated $2,700 to Bernie Sanders in a vain attempt to get a meeting on the issue. 
 
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 WASHINGTON — The man who has become the public face of rising drug prices says he has donated to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders — who has been bashing Big Pharma on the campaign trail — to try to get a meeting so the two can talk it out. 
 
 Sanders isn’t interested. His campaign said Thursday that he’s giving the money to a Washington health clinic instead — and the drug executive isn’t getting the meeting. 
 
 Martin Shkreli, chief executive officer of Turing Pharmaceuticals, became one of the Democrats’ favorite villains after raising the price of the only treatment of a rare parasitic infection by 4,000 percent. He’s an unlikely supporter of the Vermont senator, a self-described socialist who has proposed letting people import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and requiring Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. 
 
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 In an interview with Stat on Thursday, however, Shkreli confirmed that he’d donated $2,700 to the Sanders campaign — the maximum individual contribution — on Sept. 28. 
 
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 At the time, the campaign sent the Turing CEO a form e-mail full of populist fervor: “Our political system is corrupt. Big Money controls much of what happens. Together, you and I are changing that. Thank you again for your support. Best, Bernie.” 
 
 On Thursday, however, campaign spokesman Michael Briggs said Sanders won’t keep the money. Instead, the campaign will make a $2,700 donation to the Whitman-Walker health clinic in Washington. “We are not keeping the money from this poster boy for drug company greed,” Briggs said. 
 
 Shkreli made the contribution, he said, partly because he supports some of Sanders’ proposals — just not the ones about drug prices. But mainly, he said, he donated to get the senator’s attention in the hopes that he could get a private meeting to explain why drug companies set prices the way they do. 
 
 Shkreli is “furious” that Sanders is using him as a punching bag without giving him a chance to give his side. 
 
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 “I think it’s cheap to use one person’s action as a platform without kind of talking to that person,” Shkreli said in the interview. “He’ll take my money, but he won’t engage with me for five minutes to understand this issue better.” 
 
 Shkreli tweeted about his donation during Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential candidate debate, without saying how much he had given. He also challenged both Sanders and Clinton to say whether they’d prefer that he reduce the price of his company’s anti-parasitic drug, Daraprim, or use the money to develop a better treatment. 
 
 In the interview, Shkreli said he wouldn’t be surprised if Sanders gave the money back. But he wants Sanders to hear him out about why drug companies have to spend so much money on research and development — which he insists Turing does — and explain what he thinks is a reasonable amount for them to charge in return. 
 
 “I’d ask him, what role does innovation play in health care?” Shkreli said. “Is he willing to sort of accept that there is a tradeoff, that to take risks for innovation, companies have to invest lots of money and they need some kind of return for that, and what does he think that should look like?” 
 
 “And quite frankly, what I’m worried [about] is that he doesn’t have an answer for that, that he’s appealing to the masses, that he’s just kind of talking out of his rear end so that he gets some votes,” Shkreli said. 
 
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 If Sanders gets his way and drug prices are limited, though, Shkreli said he’ll deal with it. 
 
 “Right now the rule of law in the United States is that drug companies can price their products wherever they see fit, not wherever he sees fit,” Shkreli said. “If the rule changes by congressional vote, then you know, I’ll adapt to the rules.” 
 
 During the debate, Sanders took pride in his fights against the drug companies, saying, “I would lump Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry at the top of my list of people who do not like me.” 
 
 Still, Shkreli said he likes some of Sanders’ views. He said he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, and believes both parties have good ideas. But he said he supports Sanders’ call for free public college for everyone, as well as better access to mental health care. 
 
 And he was especially enthusiastic when Sanders mentioned during the debate that he supported President Bill Clinton’s military intervention in Kosovo to prevent ethnic cleansing. Shkreli, who is Albanian, cited that statement on Twitter when he mentioned he had given money to Sanders. 
 
 “That hit me very hard. For a guy I didn’t expect to like, I couldn’t ignore that,” Shkreli said. 
 
 He also said he could support Jeb Bush, who seems “reasonable” to him. But he’s not impressed by Donald Trump, who reportedly called him a “spoiled brat.” Not true, Shkreli said: “I grew up in a very poor family.” 
 
 And he’s definitely not a fan of Clinton. 
 
 “I don’t think she really stands for anything. At least Bernie’s passionate and really kind of provocative,” Shkreli said. “I met Hillary years ago. I didn’t like her then, I still don’t like her now.” 
 
 David Nather can be reached at david.nather@statnews.com . Follow him on Twitter @DavidNather . Follow Stat on Twitter @statnews ||||| CLOSE Drug executive Martin Shkreli, who vigorously defends his decision to hike the price of a life-saving drug, went silent and smirked as he appeared at a Congressional hearing on Thursday. VPC 
 
 Martin Shkreli takes his seat before the House Committee on Oversight & Reform on Feb. 4, 2016. (Photo: Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY) 
 
 WASHINGTON—Embattled drug entrepreneur Martin Shkreli — who vigorously defended his decision to hike the price of a life-saving drug from $13.50 to $750 — suddenly went silent Thursday at a Congressional committee, smirking and grinning instead of answering questions. 
 
 Now facing an unrelated federal criminal indictment, the typically loquacious Shkreli refused to testify, repeatedly citing his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself. 
 
 Members of Congress launched into fiery lectures directed at Shkreli, whose previous company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, came under scrutiny when it raised the price of Daraprim more than 5,000%. The pill is used to treat toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease that afflicts people with weakened immune systems, such as those with AIDS and pregnant women. 
 
 "Drug company executives are lining their pockets at the expense of some of the most vulnerable families in our nation," U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, said. "It's not funny, Mr. Shkreli. People are dying and they're getting sicker and sicker." 
 
 The boyish-faced Shkreli sat quietly at the witness table, clasping his hands tightly and slowly rubbing his fingers together as he was lectured. He smirked several times and appeared on the verge of laughter at one point when Cummings was speaking. 
 
 After the hearing, he removed any doubt about his feelings. 
 
 "Hard to accept that these imbeciles represent the people in our government," Shkreli said on Twitter, where he proceeded to retweet messages from several supporters. 
 
 Martin Shkreli, former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, smiles while flanked by Nancy Retzlaff, chief commercial officer, during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Shkreli invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to testify to the committee that is examining the prescription drug market. (Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images) 
 
 Pelted with hostile questions, Shkreli repeatedly recited a prepared statement that he would not testify on the advice of his counsel. He is facing multiple criminal securities charges over allegations that he took stock from a previous biotech company to pay off business debts and lied about the investment returns of his former hedge fund. 
 
 U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, professed to be flabbergasted at Shkreli's silence on drug price-hiking issues, telling the entrepreneur that he could testify on those matters without incriminating himself. 
 
 "I intend to follow the advice of counsel, not yours," Shkreli told Gowdy. 
 
 At one point, Shkreli's attorney, Ben Brafman, stood up in the crowd and tried to intervene. But U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the committee, quickly rejected Brafman's efforts. 
 
 "No, you are not recognized and you will be seated," Chaffetz said. 
 
 After less than an hour, Chaffetz dismissed Shkreli from the hearing since he was refusing to say anything. 
 
 In a brief press conference afterward, Brafman sought to explain Shkreli's dismissive facial expressions, saying his client was just "nervous." Shkreli did not comment during the press conference, but tweeted moments later. 
 
 In days before the hearing, he blasted Congress and made sarcastic jokes on Twitter about the subpoena he received to testify. 
 
 "I'm not going to say anything other than the 5th Amendment," he said recently. "They just want this to be a circus." 
 
 U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Georgia, the only pharmacist in Congress, said during the hearing that he supports free market principles but was "disgusted" by drug price-hiking companies. 
 
 "What was done here was different," Carter said. "Perverse business practices were employed." 
 
 The charismatic persona that Shkreli has cultivated — paying $2 million for the only copy of a new Wu Tang Clan album and setting up a web cam to film himself working — amplified the tension with Congress. 
 
 "People in my district are not on the Forbes billionaire list — they can’t buy Wu Tang Clan albums for $2 million," Cummings said. "Like many Americans, they struggle every single month to pay for the increasing cost of housing, education and health care. They live from paycheck to paycheck, and sometimes from no check to no check." 
 
 In addition to Shkreli, several other executives were also set to appear before the committee. 
 
 Howard Schiller, interim CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which has also come under fire for its business model and drug prices, cited the company's recent price-cutting deal with Walgreens as an example of its responsiveness. 
 
 "We’re listening and we’re changing," he said. "We have more to do." 
 
 Schiller pledged that any future drug price increases would be "much more modest" than the increases that enraged Congress. 
 
 Follow USA TODAY reporter Nathan Bomey on Twitter @NathanBomey. 
 
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– Martin Shkreli attracted no small amount of scorn for jacking drug costs, but he's far from alone. Plenty of other drugmakers have been guilty of hikes, many just since late December, claiming they need to do so to fund "risky" research, the Wall Street Journal reports. Analysts say many of the increases—which the Journal notes are on list prices, before the rebates and discounts manufacturers often provide—hover around 10%. Per Reuters, Pfizer alone, which puts out Viagra and the pain drug Lyrica, among others, raised the prices of 105 drugs at the start of 2016, some by as much as 20%, according to stats put together by info services firm Wolters Kluwer. (Pfizer confirmed some of the price increases to Reuters, but a rep said he couldn't immediately speak to all the reported hikes.) The Journal points out that it's not odd for pharma companies to hike prices right around the new year—but notes that it's somewhat unusual for this to take place now in the current climate, when doctors, patients, and the likes of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been promising to put a stop to rampant increases. The CEO of HealthPartners, a Minnesota nonprofit health-care provider, tells the Journal that such hikes "are becoming increasingly intolerable for consumers, health plans, doctors and hospitals." But the CEO of Acorda Therapeutics, which makes a drug that helps MS patients walk, tells the paper that cost increases are "our way of insuring that we can survive and develop these programs and bring these new innovative drugs to market." (A pill for hepatitis costs 250 times more in the US than in India.)