A former co-owner of the defunct New England Compounding Center has been sentenced to federal jail a decade after the Framingham agency was tied to a deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis.
Gregory Conigliaro, 57, of Southboro, was sentenced in Boston federal courtroom on Thursday in reference to conspiring to defraud the Food and Drug Administration. He was sentenced to 1 12 months in jail and one 12 months of supervised launch.
Conigliaro was the VP and normal supervisor of NECC, and served as NECC’s main level of contact with federal and state regulators.
The feds mentioned he conspired with the previous co-owner of NECC and head pharmacist, Barry Cadden, and others at NECC to misrepresent to the FDA and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy that NECC was working as a pharmacy meting out medicine for under patient-specific prescriptions. However, NECC was transport medicine in bulk throughout the nation for greater than a decade, evading regulatory oversight by fraud and misrepresentation, in line with the feds.
Conigliaro and NECC prevented the FDA’s oversight authority, and operated in a slipshod, unsafe method — finally resulting in a tragic outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed greater than 100 individuals and injured many a whole lot extra.
“Mr. Conigliaro and his co-conspirators repeatedly made the choice to put their greed over patient safety,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins mentioned in an announcement. “In flip, almost 800 sufferers suffered terribly and over 100 died.
“Today’s sentence sends a clear message to healthcare executives — if you lie to regulators, the outcomes can be deadly and we will hold you accountable,” Rollins added.
The nationwide outbreak of fungal meningitis was traced again to contaminated vials of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) manufactured by NECC. In 2012, almost 800 sufferers in 20 states had been identified with a fungal an infection after receiving injections of MPA manufactured by NECC, and greater than 100 sufferers died because of this.
The outbreak was the biggest public well being disaster ever brought on by a contaminated pharmaceutical drug.
In 2014, following a two-year investigation, Conigliaro and 13 different homeowners, workers and associates of NECC had been charged in a 131-count indictment.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”