November 17, 2025: CNBC explores “alternative funding programs” forcing U.S. patients to take unregulated medicines
Major stories
CNBC aired a documentary about alternative funding programs. An Indian national pleaded guilty to selling counterfeit cancer medicine in the U.S.
Last week, CNBC published an article and a half-hour documentary on alternative funding programs (AFPs), which lower costs for employer health plans by forcing patients to take illegally imported medications from sources that are not licensed in the U.S. The documentary includes interviews with PSM’s Shabbir Imber Safdar, representatives from Gilead Sciences, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and some of the companies supplying these drugs, as well as a former AFP patient.
Want to know more about these programs? See PSM’s AFP information page and our FOIA returns (which includes a list of medicines that have been illegally imported) and read about a lawsuit Gilead Sciences filed to stop an alternative funding scheme.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Texas announced that Sanjay Kumar, an Indian national, pleaded guilty to charges related to trafficking tens of thousands of dollars of counterfeit Keytruda, a cancer drug, to the U.S. between 2018 and 2024. The medicine Kumar shipped contained no active ingredient.
Domestic News
A clinic in Alabama allegedly injected patients with research-quality GLP-1s. Courts sentenced pill makers in New Hampshire and Ohio, while authorities in Michigan dismantled a pill press operation.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced that China had agreed to designate 13 fentanyl precursor chemicals as controlled substances to help disrupt fentanyl trafficking in the U.S. China’s Commerce Ministry reported that it would require licenses to export certain chemicals to the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and tighten oversight of the production and export of other drug-making chemicals.
Francis Matos, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $5,000 fine for selling both illegally imported and domestically acquired sildenafil (the active ingredient in Viagra) to small convenience stores. Matos and his company lacked a license to handle or distribute prescription medicines.
Med spas
A circuit court in Alabama issued a temporary restraining order against a local infusion clinic in Cullman that allegedly injected patients with research-grade tirzepatide and semaglutide that were not for human use while claiming to be using FDA-approved medicine. Alabama’s Attorney General is seeking to permanently bar the clinic’s owners and to collect restitution for customers, some of whom have reported physical injuries as a result of the injections.
Image: Facebook
Pill presses
Jerry Summers, of Manchester, New Hampshire, received an 80-month federal prison sentence for using an office suite to manufacture counterfeit pills made of fentanyl and methamphetamine disguised as OxyContin and Adderall, respectively. When authorities searched Summers’ office in 2024, they seized a pill press, dozens of punch and die sets, kilogram quantities of powders, packaging material, and approximately 20,000 pressed pills.
Cincinnati, Ohio, resident Robert Lee Howard was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for drug trafficking. Agents who searched his residence in 2024 found more than nine kilograms of fentanyl and cocaine, an industrial-size pill press and press parts, and other supplies for making fake “ecstasy” pills with fentanyl, body armor, and ammunition.
The Macomb County Sheriff's Office raided a home in Mt. Clemens, Michigan, seizing etizolam, anabolic steroids, psilocybin, ketamine, more than 1,000 suspected pressed methamphetamine/fentanyl pills, a pill press, a variety of pill molds, and other materials.
A pill mold seized during the bust of a pill press operation in November 2025 (Macomb County [MI] Sheriff's Office)
Regulators protecting patients in the news
The FDA issued warning letters to a Pennsylvania business for selling unapproved motion sickness patches that contained undeclared pharmaceuticals and a Chinese manufacturer of over-the-counter medicines over sterility concerns. The agency placed all of the latter company’s products on an import alert in September.
Legislative updates
Senators Cotton and Ricketts introduced S3134, the Combating Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals Act, which would amend the Fentanyl Sanctions Act to address the trafficking of copycat and counterfeit drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients.
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International News
News about fake antibiotics in Nigeria and India.
In Nigeria, NAFDAC warned residents that a counterfeit version of Betaclox, an antibiotic, has been found in circulation.
Meanwhile, Indian authorities arrested the proprietor of Danish Lab, a pharmaceutical company in Ambala, that allegedly manufactured substandard versions of the antibiotics amoxycillin and cefixime and sold them to government hospitals bearing the name of another pharmaceutical company, SVR Healthcare.
NAFDAC shared this image of the counterfeit antibiotic's packaging in November 2025.