Canadian pharmacy to be fined millions for illegal imports

An online pharmacy that bills itself as Canada's largest is expected to be fined USD 34 million today for importing counterfeit cancer drugs and other unapproved pharmaceuticals into the United States, a sentence that one advocacy group called too light for such a heinous crime.

Canada Drugs has filled millions of prescriptions by offering itself as a safe alternative for patients to save money on expensive drugs, and its founder, Kristian Thorkelson, has been hailed as an industry pioneer for starting the company in 2001.

But US prosecutors say Canada Drugs' business model is based entirely on illegally importing unapproved and misbranded drugs not just from Canada, but from all over the world.

The company has made at least USD 78 million through illegal imports, including two that were counterfeit versions of the cancer drugs Avastin and Altuzan that had no active ingredient, prosecutors said.

After more than two years of struggling to get the international company to appear in US court to face the felony charges, Canada Drugs and Thorkelson, struck a plea deal with prosecutors late last year.

Today, a judge in Missoula, Montana, will decide whether to approve federal prosecutors' recommended sentences that include USD 29 million forfeited, USD 5 million in fines and five years' probation for Canada Drugs.

The recommendation for Thorkelson is six months' house arrest, five years' probation and a USD 250,000 fine.

Canada Drugs also will permanently cease the sale of all unapproved, misbranded and counterfeit drugs and will surrender all of the domain names for the myriad websites it used to sell the drugs, under the deal.

US District Judge Dana Christensen has the final say in the sentences, and an advocacy group is urging the judge to impose harsher penalties to deter future crimes.

"Counterfeiting oncology medications is a nearly untraceable and heinous health care crime," Shabbir Imber Safdar, executive director of the Partnership for Safe Medicines, wrote in a letter to the judge. "You put saline in a bottle, and when the cancer patient takes it, there is no evidence in the patient of the crime."