Chain sees its owners charged with wire fraud, conspiracy
In yet another legal development surrounding counterfeit HIV drugs, a Florida court has handed down an indictment for the owners of a wholesale distributor that allegedly bought and redistributed $90 million worth of fake HIV medicines.
Safe Chain owners Adam Brosius, Patrick Boyd and Charles Boyd are accused of buying “large quantities” of diverted medicines for cheap from unreputable suppliers, many of which scored the drugs from patients with cash in an illegal “buyback” scheme, according to the indictment, which was posted online by Stat News.
Then, the distributor allegedly resold the meds to pharmacies without the required paperwork to document the origin of the medicines.
To further hide the fraud, the trio “and others” created fake paperwork to make it look as if the meds were purchased legitimately, according to prosecutors.
In some cases, Safe Chain allegedly knowingly bought and redistributed pill bottles that were labeled to be a specific HIV med but were a different drug entirely, according to the indictment.
The three owners now face charges of wire fraud and multiple conspiracy counts.
HIV drugmakers Gilead Sciences and Johnson & Johnson have already gone after Safe Chain with their respective civil cases. J&J named the distributor in its 2022 suit targeting many wholesalers and seeking $25 million from each of them.
Gilead, meanwhile, settled with the company and the Boyds earlier this year after filing a complaint in 2021. The drugmaker accused Safe Chain of distributing counterfeit bottles of its popular Biktarvy and Descovy and even uncovered the misbranded bottles that contained the antipsychotic drug Seroquel.
The agreement prohibited Safe Chain from selling any Gilead products in the U.S. required it to relinquish rights to more than $2.7 million in frozen assets. If the company violates any terms of the consent judgement and injunction, it would have to pay Gilead 100 times the wholesale acquisition cost of the products it sells, according to the Maryland newspaper the Dorchester Star.
The FDA, too, has had its eye on Safe Chain. After visiting the wholesaler’s Maryland headquarters, the agency noted a lack of “adequate verification systems” and expressed its concerns with the mislabeled Gilead products purchased from “unauthorized trading partners," according to a 2023 warning letter.
July 3, 2024
