Thursday, December 30, 2021

 

Amazon Pharmacy a Year Old, Making Bold Moves - PYMNTS ...

2 days ago — It's been just over a year since the launch of Amazon Pharmacy, and the service is clearly central to Amazon's larger healthcare aspirations.

 

The latest worker shortage may affect your health: Pharmacies ...

8 hours ago — Pushed to the breaking point, pharmacy technicians are quitting in waves and stores are struggling to hire, leading to shorter hours, delayed prescriptions ...
3 days ago — Pharmacy technicians are quitting in waves, saying they're being asked to do too much with too little pay, increasing the possibility of prescription ...

 

5 days ago — Future phases of this work will focus on imported and compounded opioid drug products. Abstract. ➢ A multi-analyte opioid HPLC-HRMS method was developed, .

 

NABP Services Help Member Boards Secure Pharmacy ...

21 hours ago — NABP has recognized these changes in law and regulation and has been helping to identify companies that are compounding biologics as a compounding pharmacy.

 

Teva fueled opioid addiction in New York, jury finds By Brendan Pierson

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/teva-fueled-opioid-addiction-in-new-york-jury-finds/ar-AAShI6O?ocid=msedgntp 

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

 Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Operators of Three Texas Pharmacies and Two Pain Clinics Arrested for Illegally Dispensing Nearly Four Million Opioid Pills

Three Houston-area pharmacists, a doctor, and a pharmacy technician have been arrested for allegedly running three pharmacies and two clinics as “pill mills;” distributing hydrocodone, oxycodone, and other controlled drugs without a legitimate medical purpose.

According to court documents, since January 2018, Chrisco Pharmacy (Chrisco), Keystone Pharmacy (Keystone), and Peoples Pharmacy (Peoples) illegally dispensed nearly four million pills of the Schedule II opioids hydrocodone and oxycodone. Keystone owner and pharmacist-in-charge Anthony Obute, 46, of Houston, was indicted yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas for illegally distributing and dispensing hydrocodone and the Schedule IV muscle relaxer carisoprodol. According to the filed criminal complaint leading to Obute’s arrest on Dec. 2, Obute operated Keystone as a pill mill, illegally distributing hydrocodone and oxycodone. The complaint further alleges that from about September 2018 to about September 2020, Obute directed Keystone to purchase around 1.1 million of the highest-strength, short-acting hydrocodone and oxycodone pills commercially available, which he then sold to so-called “crew leaders,” or drug traffickers who pay individuals to pose as patients in order to obtain pills to sell onto the black market.

Ophelia Emeakoroha, 50, of Pearland, was arrested on Dec. 2 on a criminal complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleging that Emeakoroha, the pharmacist-in-charge at Peoples, illegally distributed and dispensed hydrocodone and oxycodone. According to court documents, from about Jan. 1, 2019, to about Dec. 31, 2019, Emeakoroha caused Peoples to purchase around 250,000 of the highest-strength, short-acting hydrocodone and oxycodone pills commercially available, which she then sold to crew leaders in a scheme similar to Keystone’s.

Shivarajpur Ravi, M.D., 65, of Houston, was arrested on Dec. 2 on a criminal complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleging that he operated two pill-mill clinics in the Houston area, which he used to illegally distribute and dispense hydrocodone and carisoprodol. According to court documents, undercover officers obtained illegitimate prescriptions from Ravi, once in 2020 at his clinic operating out of 12555 Ste. B Gulf Freeway in Houston, and again at a new clinic located at 3333 Bayshore Dr., Ste. 250, Pasadena, which he opened in 2021. The papers detail how crew leaders were observed paying for groups of patients, filling out their paperwork, and coaching them on what to say to the doctor as they waited to be seen. The 2020 purported consult with Ravi is alleged to have lasted less than two minutes, after which officers had the prescription filled at Keystone. In both cases, the visit ended with Ravi prescribing large quantities of hydrocodone and carisoprodol.

A few weeks prior to the arrests of Obute, Emeakoroha, and Ravi, Christopher Obaze, 61, of Richmond, and Eric Tubbe, 36, of Rosenberg, were arrested on charges brought in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas related to their alleged illicit operation of Chrisco as a pill mill. The eight-count indictment alleged that in doing so, Obaze and Tubbe conspired to illegally distribute and dispense hydrocodone and oxycodone, maintained Chrisco as a drug-involved premises in proximity to a facility for children, and laundered their ill-gotten gains, using the proceeds to promote the enterprise, depositing cash in amounts below $10,000 to avoid bank reporting requirements, and transferring the proceeds through numerous accounts to obscure the funds’ origins. Obaze was also charged with tax crimes. According to court documents, from around January 2018, to around October 2021, Obaze was the pharmacist-in-charge and Tubbe was a pharmacy technician at Chrisco, which the two men used as a front to purchase and then illegally sell around 2.25 million of the highest-strength short-acting hydrocodone and oxycodone pills commercially available. The indictment alleges that Obaze and Tubbe sold the pills, in bulk, directly to drug traffickers, without the involvement of doctors, prescriptions, or patients.

Federal charges related to the illegal distribution of Schedule II opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone, which all of the indicted defendants face, carry statutory maximums of 20 years in prison. Obaze and Tubbe are both charged with money laundering crimes that carry statutory maximums of 10 and 20 years in prison, while Obaze’s tax charges carry a statutory maximum of three years. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; Administrator Anne Milgram of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); Acting Assistant Director Jay Greenberg of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division; Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ramsey E. Covington of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Houston Field Office; Acting Special Agent in Charge Conrad Barnett of U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (USPS-OIG); Acting Inspector in Charge Dana Carter of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Houston Division; Texas Attorney General Office’s Medicare Fraud Control Unit (MFCU); and Houston Police Department (HPD) made the announcement.

The DEA, HPD, FBI, MFCU, IRS-CI, USPS-OIG, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating the cases.

Trial Attorney Drew Pennebaker of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section is prosecuting the cases.

Indictments and criminal complaints are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Topic(s): 
Opioids
Health Care Fraud
Press Release Number: 
21-1278
Updated December 21, 202

 

6 hours ago — Nonetheless, the government, Rankin and Pressley wrote, “used pentobarbital sourced from compounding pharmacies not regulated by the Food and Drug ...

 

Prolific Thoroughbred Trainer Sentenced To Five Years In Federal Doping Case

Trainer Jorge Navarro Ordered to Pay Over $26 Million in Restitution

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that defendants JORGE NAVARRO received a sentence of sixty months’ imprisonment today for his leading role in the felony drug misbranding and adulteration charges arising from this Office’s investigation of the abuse of animals through the use of performance enhancing drugs and as charged in United States v. Navarro et al., 20 Cr. 160 (MKV). NAVARRO was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who furthered ordered that NAVARRO pay $26,860,514 in restitution for the fraud perpetrated through his doping program.

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Monday, December 20, 2021

 

 

14 hours ago — The FDA aims to establish the minimum current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) requirements for human drug products compounded by an outsourcing facility.

 

11 hours ago — It said an administrator for the state plans paid the compounding pharmacy “over $50 million for compounded medications mailed to individuals in New Jersey.”.

FDA NEWS:

 

Fulfilling Essential Public Health Needs in 2022

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the FDA’s critical public health role into sharper focus. The FDA’s public health mission, although most apparent during emergencies, is actually in operation every day of every year, protecting the American public from many threats.

In the coming weeks we will release a report highlighting some of the agency’s key accomplishments over the past year and illustrating the FDA’s profound impact in protecting Americans’ health and safety. As we close out 2021, however, I want to offer some insight into the themes that will continue to guide our public health agenda as we move into 2022.

First and foremost, public health and consumer protection activities will continue to be the primary focus of FDA regulatory and compliance actions. We’ve made great strides in this area, as demonstrated, for instance, by our recent guidance to begin lowering the sodium content of foods, or the actions we’ve taken to reduce exposure to toxic elements in foods commonly eaten by babies and young children to the lowest possible levels, and by limiting fruit and other flavored vaping products that can be so attractive to young people. Through our initiative, “The New Era of Smarter Food Safety,” we are bringing new tools to bear on the longstanding problem of foodborne illness.


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Friday, December 17, 2021

 

19 hours ago — Compounded medications are specialty medications mixed by a pharmacist to meet the specific medical needs of an individual patient.

 

11 hours ago — Temporary Policy for Compounding of Certain Drugs for Hospitalized Patients by. Pharmacy Compounders not Registered as Outsourcing Facilities During the ..

Wednesday, December 15, 2021