WASHINGTON—After Turing Pharmaceutical raised the price of the decades-old, life-saving drug, Daraprim, from $13.50 a pill to $750 last fall—leaving some patients with $16,000 co-pays—Turing executives handed out six-figure bonuses, spent thousands of dollars on a lavish yacht party, and paid a public relations firm to help them shine their tarnished reputation.

The revelations came amid a Thursday hearing by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which focused on such high-profile cases of drug price-hikes that the committee argues are helping to fuel the soaring costs of healthcare. The committee, chaired by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Ut.), aimed to understand why some drugs’ prices have skyrocketed and figure out how to stop it.

One of the key witnesses they called to testify was Martin Shkreli, Turing’s majority shareholder and former CEO, who was largely responsible for Daraprim’s price hike. Shkreli stepped down as CEO in December, shortly after being indicted on fraud charges for allegedly running a Ponzi-like scheme with two former hedge funds and swindling another former pharmaceutical company, Retrophin, out of millions of dollars. In light of his impending criminal trial, Shkreli said prior to the hearing that he would not answer questions from the lawmakers and would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination. He kept to his word.

Sitting before the committee, Shkreli refused to answer any questions—except one on how to pronounce his name—and repeatedly said a pre-written response: “On the advice of counsel, I invoke my Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination and respectfully decline to answer your question.”

While the lack of answers itself appeared to fire up the committee, Shkreli’s characteristic smug manner was what ultimately ignited tempers. Shkreli repeatedly smirked, laughed, turned his back to the chairperson, and, at one point, stopped paying attention to pose for pictures.

“It’s not funny, Mr. Shkreli,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the committee, said. “People are dying, and they’re getting sicker and sicker.” At another point, Cummings stopped what he was saying to ask Shkreli if he was listening after the 32-year-old had turned away from the representative.

About 45 minutes into the hearing, Chaffetz dismissed Shkreli—but not before many committee members rebuked his “disrespectful” behavior and “unprecedented arrogance.” After the hearing, Chaffetz referred to Shkreli’s behavior as a “performance.”

With Shkreli out of the room, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) pondered out loud if there could be any repercussions, asking Chaffetz if Shkreli can be held in contempt. Chaffetz replied that he had no intention to do so. “But, I’ll entertain any suggestions that there might be,” he added.

Prior to the hearing, Shkreli had said that he wished to “berate” and “insult” the Congressional committee members. But, after hiring a new lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, who has defended Michael Jackson and Sean Combs (Puff Daddy), Shkreli said he would be keeping quiet in accordance with his new counsel’s advice.

Still, after his departure Shkreli tweeted about the hearing, calling the committee members “imbeciles.”

The hearing continued for a few more hours, in which time committee members noticed the tweet and fumed more, enraging Cummings in particular.

“You all spend all your time strategizing about how to hide your price increase behind positive PR and coming up with stupid jokes… while other people were sitting there trying to figure out how they were going to survive,” he shouted. “And I have said it before, this is about, a lot of this is about blood money.”

“It makes us sick”

With Shkreli out of the hearing, much of the fury was lobbed directly at another witness, Turing’s chief commercial officer, Nancy Retzlaff. In her testimony, Retzlaff gave an unapologetic stance to Daraprim’s price increase, saying that it was justified based on current drug pricing practices. She also argued that most of the additional money that the price hike brought in was being reinvested in research and development.

Daraprim treats the parasitic infection toxoplasmosis, which often strikes people with compromised immune systems, such as people with HIV/AIDS. In the time since Daraprim was developed in 1953, no other drug to treat toxoplasmosis has come to market, likely because only a small number of patients need the drug—currently around 3,000. This gave Turing a monopoly over the medication despite that it’s off-patent. Retzlaff said that Turing is now investing 60 percent of its profits into research to come up with alternatives.

“Yeah, when things went south, you increased it to 60 percent—to increase your public relations,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said. “But before that it was only 5 percent.”

Carter’s point came up multiple times during the hearing as Retzlaff repeatedly tried to dodge disdain by claiming that Turing is a young company focused on research and development of new drugs for neglected diseases. But, the reframing failed in light of internal documents collected by the committee that revealed that a PR firm had advised Retzlaff and other Turing executives to say just that to improve its image.

“[S]pecifically tie profits from Daraprim to the research and development of a new and more effective treatment for Daraprim patients. ... This can set you up also for more long term reputation rehabilitation by forcing a focus on Turing as a research and development company—not a pharma hedge fund hybrid,” a consultant wrote to Turing executives in an October 8 e-mail.

The thousands of documents the committee collected also provided hints that Turing planned more price hikes for other drugs. They also refuted Retzlaff's assertion that Turing was operating at a loss, showing that in 2015 Daraprim sales totaled $98 million.

As Retzlaff continued to get pummeled with questions, the committee turned its eye to another witness, Howard Schiller, interim CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Valeant has also become notorious for dramatically raising the price of life-saving drugs. Namely, the company purchased nitroprusside (Nitropress), which treats severe heart failure and high blood pressure, and raised the price from $50 a vial to $650. The company also bought isoproterenol (Isuprel), which prevents fatally slow heart rates, and raised its price from $50 to $2,700.

Given the profit surges, Schiller reported to the committee that he has personally made $27 million while at Valeant. But, in contrast to Retzlaff, Schiller took a more humbled approach to his responses, saying repeatedly that the company had made mistakes in the past and would mend its ways and try to reduce prices in the future.

Despite the admission of guilt, Chaffetz and other committee members were unmoved. “I feel like you’re both lying to us,” he said, accusing them of being disingenuous about their profit-seeking motives. “Your extravagance is something we all have to pay for… it makes us sick.”

In between questions to Schiller and Retzlaff, the committee questioned its last two witnesses, Mark Merritt, president and CEO of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, and Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research with the Food and Drug Administration. Most of the questions revolved around ways to subvert the Turings and Valeants of the world and bring generics to the market faster.

After the hearing, Chaffetz told reporters that he hoped to talk more with the FDA about possible solutions to the price hikes and pharmaceutical greed.

Likewise, Cummings said after the hearing: “the thing that I don’t want is for us to have motion, commotion, emotion, and no results.”