April 28, 2025: SafeChain Solutions executive admits to criminal wire fraud in HIV drug diversion case
Major Stories
Both the owner of a distributor that sold diverted HIV drugs with forged pedigrees and a woman who sold illicit pill presses and pill dies pleaded guilty. A new Arkansas law will ban pharmacy ownership for PBMs.
Adam Brosius, one of three owners of SafeChain Solutions, a Maryland-based pharmaceutical distributor, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on April 21. Brosius purchased secondhand HIV medicines collected from patients and resold them at low prices to licensed U.S. pharmacies, forging paperwork to make them look legitimate. Gilead Sciences settled a lawsuit with SafeChain Solutions for this activity in February 2024. The company was part of a large network that put more than 85,000 bottles of these counterfeit bottles on pharmacy shelves. SafeChain’s remaining owners are still under criminal prosecution.
Xiaofei “Sophie” Chen, who was charged with shipping Americans pill presses and illegal counterfeit pill molds in October 2025, pleaded guilty in a Texas federal court on April 22. It is not clear when Chen will be sentenced. Read case documents here.
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Arkansas’s governor signed HB1150, which bans Pharmacy Benefit Managers from owning pharmacies. Legislators anticipate that the law will curb anticompetitive practices that have placed pressure on independent pharmacies in the state.
Reuters and The American Prospect reported that the Department of Justice’s Consumer Protection Branch (CPB) will be disbanded on September 30, at the end of the fiscal year. For decades, CPB has enforced the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, presiding, for example, over eBay’s multimillion dollar settlement over the sale of pill presses on its platform and the prosecutions of criminals distributing counterfeit, unapproved, and dangerous treatments that threaten Americans. PSM will miss their good work.
Domestic News
Prosecutions involving pill press operations in Connecticut, Georgia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Rhode Island move forward. The FDA sent a warning letter to a Texas compounding pharmacy.
A U.S. district court in Washington D.C. sentenced Pennsylvania resident Jacob Blair to 15 years in federal prison for selling counterfeit oxycodone, Adderall and Xanax pills on dark web marketplaces. A search of Blair’s residence in February 2023 yielded firearms, over 20,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills made with fentanyl, and an industrial pill press.
Willis Taylor of West Haven, Connecticut received an 11-and-a-half year sentence for running a ring that distributed fentanyl and methamphetamine pills disguised as prescription drugs. Investigators seized kilograms of illicit drugs, counterfeit pills, four pill-press machines and more than $200,000 in cash over the course of the investigation.
A third man, Jorge “Big Head” Pimentel of Cranston, Rhode Island, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison after he admitted to running a drug lab that manufactured almost 20,000 fake Percocet pills made with fentanyl.
Defendants in Georgia and New Hampshire pleaded guilty to manufacturing counterfeit prescription pills with pill presses.
In April, the FDA sent a warning letter to Texas-based Empower Pharma about unsanitary conditions and the sale of unapproved new drug products. The company, which recalled vitamin B injections last year, is one of several being sued by Eli Lilly over the sale of compounded GLP-1s.
A pill press seized from Pimentel's operation (U.S. District Court, Rhode Island)
Patient safety issues in the GLP-1 space this week
Eli Lilly sued Mochi Health, Fella and Delilah, Willow Health Services, and Henry Meds for continuing to sell tirzepatide products after a U.S. judge ruled that compounders must stop making knock-offs now that drug shortages have resolved.
The reddit user asking this question on April 23, 2025 should be worried about more than injecting themselves with an unexpectedly red liquid. The bottle says it should be stored at a temperature between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius (36-46 degrees Fahrenheit). Was it shipped safely? Why is light-sensitive medicine in a clear bottle?
Most importantly, as a commenter pointed out, it says it is for research purposes only, which means it may contain contaminants that are not safe for humans.
International News
Reports of counterfeit drugs in India, Kenya and Thailand.
Paracetamol injections from Kenya's warning (Facebook)
Gujarat, India’s Food and Drug Control Administration announced that it had disrupted a ring that distributed counterfeit medicines using fake QR codes on drug packaging. The fakes were circulated in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, and West Bengal.
Three men in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh were arrested for making and selling fake Oxytocin injections after watching tutorials on the internet.
Kenya’s Pharmacy and Poisons Board recalled specific lots of Augmentin, paracetamol injections, and esomeprazole.
Thai authorities raided two warehouses, seizing over 172,000 bottles of counterfeit cough syrup, along with machinery, equipment, tools, and raw materials, to break up a network mixing cough syrup with other substances to produce the illicit drink “4X100.”