Public healthMurder charges against leaders of compounding company whose adulterated product killed 64

In the fall of 2012, 751 people in twenty states fell ill and sixty-four died from a fungal meningitis outbreak shortly after receiving injections of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate produced at the New England Compounding Center (NECC), a Massachusetts-based compounding pharmacy. On Wednesday, law enforcement authorities charged fourteen people connected to NECC with multiple counts of racketeering, introducing adulterated drugs into national commerce, contempt, mail fraud, and other charges.

Barry Cadden, co-founder of the company, and Glenn Adam Chin, a pharmacist who ran the sterile room, face the most serious charges, according to the 131-count indictment. Cadden and Chin are charged with the second degree murder of twenty-five patients in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia by “acting in wanton and willful disregard of the likelihood” that their actions would lead to death or great harm. Both men could face life in prison if convicted. Greg Conigliaro, another co-founder of NECC was also arrested on Wednesday.

TheNew York Times reports that Chin was first arrested in September at Logan International Airport as he attempted to board a flight to Hong Kong. At the time he was charged with one count of mail fraud for fraudulently labeling drugs as injectable and shipping them to a pain clinic in Michigan, where 217 patients eventually contracted fungal meningitis and fifteen died. “He feels hugely remorseful for everything that’s happened — for the injuries and the deaths — but he never intended to cause harm to anybody,” Chin’s lawyer, Stephen Weymouth said. “It seems to be a bit of an overreach.”

“Two years after the fungal meningitis outbreak, our hearts continue to go out to the victims of this tragedy and to their families,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg said. “Our work on behalf of all patients who want and deserve medicines that do not subject them to undue risk is far from done. The FDA will continue to work aggressively on many fronts with the states, the Department of Justice, and others to protect the American public from unsafe compounded drug products.”

After the outbreak, NECC went into bankruptcy protection and surrendered its pharmacy license after receiving hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims and their families. According to prosecutors, the pharmacy and Medical Sales Management, Inc. — a company that shared ownership with NECC and provided it with sales and administrative services — constituted a criminal “enterprise” whose intention was to “obtain money and property including through the means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises.”

Across the nation, the outbreak raised alarms among doctors and their patients who relied on the drug and other variations of it for treatment of back pain and other ailments. “Every patient receiving medical treatment deserves the peace of mind and knowledge that the medicine they are receiving is safe,” acting Associate Attorney General Stuart F. Delery said at a news conference in Boston to announce the charges. “When people and companies violate that trust and break the law, through conduct as alleged in the indictment that we are announcing today, the consequences to patients and their families can be catastrophic.”