Drug Sales

A man who prosecutors say made millions of dollars from a prescription drug scam in which he recruited destitute people with HIV to serve as straw patients was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison by a federal judge in Los Angeles. Prosecutors accused Nathaniel Newhouse and his longtime girlfriend of laundering his illicit drug income by claiming $3 million in gambling winnings, then writing off that same amount in gambling losses and other tax deductions. Despite his conviction on drug possession and conspiracy charges in May, Newhouse, 55, told U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson that he was trying to help people by ferrying them to pharmacies to pick up prescriptions such as OxyContin, a powerful pain reliever likened to heroin that can sell for as much as $80 a pill on the black market.

The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act makes it illegal to sell a prescription drug for any purpose other than what's listed on the label. Nevertheless, a divided federal appeals court this week tossed out the conviction of a former drug sales rep who was recorded pitching a doctor on other uses of a medicine approved by regulators solely to treat the sleep disorder narcolepsy. And here's the kicker: The court ruled that the sales rep had a free-speech right to promote the drug's unapproved uses.

The maker of Neurontin disguised an effort to promote the anti-seizure drug to physicians as a clinical trial and failed to inform involved physicians and patients, according to a new analysis published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal. That conclusion was based on an analysis of internal corporate documents that companies involved in marketing Neurontin , including the drug’s current owner, Pfizer Inc., were required to be disclosed in litigation. The authors of the analysis in the Archives of Internal Medicine include paid consultants to plaintiffs in litigation over the drugmaker’s promotion of Neurontin for off-label indications.

A Los Angeles County judge ordered the co-founder of frozen yogurt giant Pinkberry on Thursday to stand trial for allegedly assaulting a homeless man on the side of an East Hollywood road after the victim testified that the entrepreneur repeatedly struck him with a tire iron. In a preliminary hearing for yogurt mogul Young Lee, the alleged victim testified this week for the first time, saying that Lee hit him in the head with the tire iron at least twice before chasing him through a busy street to continue the attack.

A Police Department undercover task force is cracking down on proliferating drug sales along city streets. Just a little more than two weeks into battle, the task force has made as many narcotics arrests as the entire department usually records in a month.

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they obtained a judgment -- thought to be the first of its kind in the nation -- against a Stockton convenience store that bought extraordinary amounts of decongestant that could be used to manufacture methamphetamine. The government sued the market and owner Dien Jim Nguyen, 42, settling the case for $50,000 and a lifetime injunction against his sale of the decongestant or any other drug that could be used to make methamphetamine.

Amgen Inc.'s first-quarter profit rose 40% on higher sales of drugs for anemia, rheumatoid arthritis and chemotherapy-related infections. The Thousand Oaks biotechnology company said net income grew to $690.2 million, or 52 cents a share, from $493.3 million, or 37 cents, in the same quarter last year. Revenue climbed 33% to $2.34 billion from $1.76 billion a year earlier. Excluding charges related to its 2002 purchase of Immunex Corp., Amgen had adjusted earnings of $752.3 million, or 57 cents.

A University of Virginia student was sentenced to 13 months in prison Monday for selling drugs in one of three fraternity houses seized by federal authorities during a high-profile attack on middle-class drug dealing. Ernest Brown Pryor, 19, pleaded guilty to two counts of drug distribution near a school. Assistant U.S. Atty.

Roche Holding said it plans to eliminate about 3,000 jobs over the next two to three years, including about 1,100 in the U.S., in an effort to boost profit in its pharmaceuticals unit. The job cuts represent 4.6% of the Swiss company's total work force and 7.3% of the employees in its drug division. Most of the job cuts will come in manufacturing and no cutbacks in research spending are planned, Roche said. About 900 positions that report to Roche's U.S. headquarters in Nutley, N.J.

Anaheim police today announced the arrests of 105 people after a three-month undercover operation that targeted drug dealers in three neighborhoods near Disneyland. Since early May, undercover officers have purchased $50,000 worth of cocaine and heroin, Police Chief Joseph P. Molloy said in a news release. Police arrested 75 people on suspicion of selling narcotics and 30 people on suspicion of having narcotics for sale. Bail for each has been set at $25,000.

Two reputed gang members have been charged with violating an injunction prohibiting gang and narcotics activity on Los Angeles' skid row, the first such legal action since the broad-reaching injunction was issued, city prosecutors said Thursday. Briant Hicks, 22, and Mirando Faulks, 30, each face one criminal count of violating a court order barring them from being present within the "Central City Recovery Zone," bordered by 3rd Street on the north, 9th Street on the south, Broadway on the west and Central Avenue on the east.

Imagine that you had a type of cancer that could be cured with chemotherapy - but supplies of the drug were limited, and you might not get it. This is the scenario facing an unknown number of patients who normally would depend on drugs like paclitaxel (Taxol), doxorubicin (Doxil), vincristine (Oncovin), methotrexate(Trexall, Rheumatrex), leucovorin and bleomycin (Blenoxane). On Monday, President Obama signed an executive order directing the Food and Drug Administration to take steps to help resolve such shortages.

Gunmen dumped the bodies of 35 people with suspected ties to organized crime under an overpass filled with motorists Tuesday on the outskirts of the Mexican port city of Veracruz, officials said. The bodies were left in a pair of trucks and on the road near a major shopping center in the community of Boca del Rio, a popular site for Mexican tourists to the port city, along the Gulf of Mexico. Reynaldo Escobar, prosecutor for the state of Veracruz, said the dead bore signs of torture.

Your doctor gives you an expensive new drug to control your cholesterol, or recommends a certain brand of artificial hip, or says you need a stent to open a clogged artery. He's the expert. But how do you know his expertise is untainted? The makers of the drug, the replacement hip or the stent may have paid your doctor to deliver promotional talks extolling the virtues of the product. Or they could be paying him, or her, to consult on marketing plans. It doesn't necessarily follow, of course, that this kind of moonlighting influences the treatment you receive.

Sixty reputed members of an Iraqi drug-trafficking organization in El Cajon have been arrested and authorities seized more than $630,000 in cash, 3,500 pounds of marijuana, dozens of high-powered firearms and several explosive devices, law enforcement officials said Thursday. The organization was run out of a social club and has suspected links to the ruthless Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico and an Iraqi organized crime syndicate in Detroit, according to law enforcement officials. The social club, located on East Main Street, has been a "hub of criminal activity conducted by Iraqi organized crime," El Cajon police Chief Pat Sprecco said.

Amgen Inc. reported second-quarter profit that topped analysts' estimates on higher drug sales and said 2011 earnings would reach the upper end of its forecast. Net income fell to $1.17 billion, or $1.25 a share, from $1.2 billion, or $1.25, a year earlier, the Thousand Oaks biotechnology company said Friday. Adjusted for acquisitions and restructuring costs, profit of $1.37 beat the average $1.28 estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Amgen has increased marketing spending to promote denosumab, approved last year as Prolia, for women with osteoporosis, and Xgeva, to reduce fractures in cancer patients.

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted 18 people, including three physicians, on charges of running an international scheme to illegally sell drugs on the Internet. The scheme involved a headquarters in Costa Rica, a credit card company in Israel, an accounting firm in Cyprus and pharmacies and individuals throughout the U.S.

The maker of Neurontin disguised an effort to promote the anti-seizure drug to physicians as a clinical trial and failed to inform involved physicians and patients, according to a new analysis published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal. That conclusion was based on an analysis of internal corporate documents that companies involved in marketing Neurontin , including the drug’s current owner, Pfizer Inc., were required to be disclosed in litigation. The authors of the analysis in the Archives of Internal Medicine include paid consultants to plaintiffs in litigation over the drugmaker’s promotion of Neurontin for off-label indications.

Our leader had a megaphone strapped over his shoulder and a list in his pocket of drug treatment programs and women's shelters. There were half a dozen of us invited to join him, walking in the dark down Western Avenue, scanning doorways and street corners. "I think I see one," somebody would announce, and we'd quicken toward our target … only to realize that the woman we thought was a prostitute was waiting for a bus or heading toward the market. Maybe word of the Friday night sweep had reached the streets, mused Najee Ali, the irrepressible activist leading the push against prostitution along this part of Western known as a nexus of sex-for-sale and drug dealing.