This is some crazy stuff right here. The length that people will go to pull off a scam in the name of making money continues to amaze me.
FDA.gov: “Arif Diwan, 60, owner of Lifescreen LLC, a Cranston, R.I., based company that labeled, advertised, and sold drugs and pharmaceutical products under the brand name “LifeLogic,†pleaded guilty in federal court in Providence today to conspiring with others to purchase drugs manufactured in India and other countries, repackaging and relabeling them making it appear that they were manufactured in the United States and Europe, and had been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and then reselling them… According to court documents, between 2012 and 2015, Diwan received and filled numerous orders for high-cost pharmaceutical products, including a number of products used in the treatment of cancer. Diwan admitted that he rebranded and relabeled drugs manufactured in India, including adding bogus FDA codes and markings to make it appear that the drugs had been manufactured in the United States or Europe and were approved for sale by the FDA. The drugs were shipped by Diwan to customers in numerous countries. Diwan did not sell misbranded and mislabeled drugs in the United States.â€
Two important things to note: first, this happened between 2012 and 2015, and second, nothing appears to have been sold in the United States.
When people wonder why we need something like the new Track-and-Trace legislation, all one has to do is point them to the article above. Hopefully, the ability to see a drug’s pedigree from the manufacturer to the patient will prevent this type of thing from happening, or at least make it significantly harder to do.