TORONTO: A Toronto businessman who allegedly smuggled millions worth of misbranded and unapproved drugs into the US has been freed on bail pending the appeal of his extradition to the US
Tzvi Lexier, 29, has been in jail since Sept. 2. His lawyer, Daniel Santoro, said he’ll argue to the federal justice minister that Lexier’s surrender “would be unjust or oppressive” under the Extradition Act.
“The substance of the allegations are that he operated in a grey market, permitting Americans to access pharmaceuticals outside the FDA’s regulatory process, which results in inflated prices for Americans and therefore impedes their access to health care,” Santoro stated.
FDA-approved drugs can be bought overseas at a “significantly lower price,” Santoro wrote in his Court of Appeal documents.
“The FDA is currently under investigation by US Congress following reports that FDA agents ‘complain that criminal office managers have forced them to pursue cases involving mislabelled foreign-imported injectable drugs at the expense of cases with more potential to protect the public health,” he wrote.
In an interview, Santoro said the extradition “puts Canada in bed with the large US pharmaceutical companies and the FDA — and that’s an ugly threesome.
“We’ll argue to the justice minister that she shouldn’t surrender Mr. Lexier because it’s a disservice to the American public, who are denied affordable access to these drugs.”
Lexier, who is now free on $1-million bail but cannot leave Ontario, is wanted by American authorities on accusations of fraud, conspiracy and distributing unlicensed wholesale prescription drugs through two Toronto companies that grossed US$18 million in revenues.
Court documents allege Lexier, as principal of SB Medical Inc. and TC Medical Group, conspired with others to purchase unapproved drugs from Turkey, Canada, France and the United Kingdom and shipped them to the US from April 2011 to December 2014.
The unapproved versions of drugs included cosmetic Botox, another form of Botox for bladder disorders and chronic migraines, and chemotherapy and arthritis medications. The drugs, if not properly refrigerated or stored, could cause severe infections and possibly death, according to the documents.
On one occasion, a customer reported some of her patients ended up in hospital as a result of administering Botox purchased from the companies, federal Crown attorney Heather Graham alleged.
