LOUIS : A Turkish businessman who admitted smuggling misbranded and adulterated cancer drugs to Chesterfield was sentenced in federal court here to 30 months in prison, fined $150,000 and ordered to forfeit another $150,000, federal prosecutors said.
Sabahaddin Akman admitted that his drug wholesale company sold a cancer drug to a wholesaler in the United Kingdom, Richard Taylor, whose products were later determined to contain mold and water instead of medicine, prosecutors said.
Akman also admitted that his company “concealed the illegal nature of the prescription drug shipments,” prosecutors said. The company split shipments to lessen the chance of the drugs being seized and concealed their contents with false labels that sometimes described the drugs as “gifts,” “documents” or a “product sample” while also concealing the value of the shipment, they said. He also shipped the drugs that needed to be kept cold with inadequate measures to keep them that way.
Akman’s case is one in a case that nabbed Taylor, St. Louis area doctors Dr. Abid Nisar, as well as others in the supply chain.
Akman employee Ozkan Semizoglu was sentenced to 27 months in prison in October for the same charges as his boss.
“Patients receiving cancer treatment drugs should be assured that the medications meet FDA’s standards for safety and quality,” said Catherine Hermsen, head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Kansas City field office, in a prepared statement.
