Feds arrest 14 people allegedly involved in Mass. compounding pharmacy toxic-prescription case

BOSTON – Fourteen people will face federal charges Wednesday for allegedly sending toxic prescriptions across the nation that killed dozens of people, the Boston Globe reported.
The defendants, which include the two founders of the now-closed New England Compounding Center in Framingham, will make appearances in U.S. District Court Wednesday morning. Charges include racketeering, introducing adulterated drugs into national commerce, contempt and mail fraud, among others.
Barry Cadden, a founder and owner of the company who also acted as its head pharmacist; and Glenn Chin, the supervising pharmacist who allegedly created a fatal batch of drugs without properly sterilizing it, face 25 allegations of second-degree murder of patients in Michigan, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana, Maryland, Virginia, Florida and North Carolina, the Globe reported.
Gregory A. Conigliaro, another founder owner of the company, also faces charges.
Four other people also face racketeering charges, though they are not charged with being responsible in the alleged murders.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that approximately 750 people contracted fungal meningitis or related diseases from the pharmacy’s tainted drugs. At least 64 deaths related to the outbreak in 2012 have been confirmed, the newspaper said.
Bloomberg reported that the spate of infections tied to the company, also called NECC, led Congress to pass legislation almost a year ago increasing Food and Drug Administration oversight of compounding pharmacies, which provide health-care companies with tailored drug mixtures that aren’t commercially available.

NECC’s facilities were in “deplorable” physical condition when they were probed by state and federal health investigators after the outbreak, according to related complaints against the company filed by victims and families. Authorities found contaminated vials of medicine, dirty surfaces and equipment in supposedly “clean rooms” where medicine was prepared, incorrect room temperatures, leaky boilers and air contaminants, according to court papers.

The indictment was unsealed today by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.

The company, formally known as New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc., suspended operations and filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2012 as a result of lawsuits by victims and families. The company and its insurers in August won court approval of a settlement of almost $100 million.

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Shortly before it filed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition, the company surrendered its Massachusetts pharmacy license, recalled all its products and fired most employees, according to court records.

The 73-page indictment outlines in the greatest detail yet the alleged derelictions behind the outbreak, including a repeated failure to use an autoclave for the time needed to complete sterilization. The charges also relate to a series of cash withdrawals, totaling more than $33 million, intended to get around a court order against moving assets in the years after the outbreak.

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