Grey Marketer Sold Illegal Cancer Drugs to US Doctors - Sentenced to 24 Months
James Newcomb of La Jolla, California was sentenced to twenty-four months imprisonment for conspiring to distribute adulterated prescription drugs to physicians in the United States, including an oncologist on August 23, 2012.
Newcomb plead guilty, and admitted distributing prescription drugs, unapproved for use in the United States, from foreign countries to physicians located in the US with the assistance of people in Canada and the UK. Newcomb marketed the cancer drugs to US doctors by offering the illegal medications at 14% to 60% off the average wholesale price of legitimate drugs, announced the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations.
Newcomb also admitted that he distributed medications that required consistent cold temperatures for safety and efficacy, like Rituxan, Herceptin and Neupogen. These medications are sensitive to jostling and must remain cold. But he didn't send the medications using appropriate means, and the drugs arrived in poor condition. In one case the medications were described as a "gooey mess" by a nurse at an oncology office. By sending medications for use in ways that damaged their effectiveness it also adulterated them, reports the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations.
Jan Diltz, Public Information Officer, wrote that "These prescription cancer treatment drugs were 'adulterated' under federal law in that the methods of their storage and shipment were not appropriate and did not provide adequate protection against foreseeable external factors in storage and use that can cause deterioration or contamination of these prescription drugs."
Newcomb also forfeited his interest in $1.4 million that were seized druing the investigation at banks in the US and the UK, as well as a Land Rover automobile.
Want to get a summary of global counterfeit drug news emailed to you every week? Sign up for our email list!
