A Miami man has pleaded guilty in federal court to distributing adulterated HIV drugs dispensed to U.S. patients.
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A Miami man pleaded guilty to distributing approximately $25 million worth of misbranded and adulterated HIV drugs to unsuspecting patients through pharmacies across the United States, according to federal prosecutors.
Armando Herrera, 43, is facing a maximum sentence of five years in prison for this crime.
Herrera pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to introduce adulterated and misbranded drugs into the U.S. market, as confirmed by court filings submitted to the U.S. District Court in Miami.
A medication is considered adulterated if it contains substances that have been substituted for the actual drug, either partially or entirely.
Herrera, along with his co-conspirators, established companies in Texas, California, and Washington state, which procured significant quantities of misbranded and adulterated HIV medication through legal channels. They then falsified the packaging of the pills and sold them at discounted rates to wholesalers, who subsequently sold the drugs to pharmacies, according to court documents.
The wholesalers were implicated in the illegal operation, while the pharmacies were unaware that the drugs had been tampered with or misbranded.
The adulterated and misbranded drugs included Truvada, Biktarvy, and other unnamed medications.
Truvada is prescribed to prevent HIV infection in individuals at risk, and can also be used in combination with other drugs for treatment. Both Truvada and Biktarvy are products of Gilead Sciences.
Herrera and his co-conspirators received payments amounting to $16.7 million to $25 million from two wholesalers, as mentioned in the court filings.
However, the filings did not disclose how Herrera and his accomplices acquired the drugs.
Oftentimes, medications are obtained through the illegal market by purchasing them from individual patients who have been prescribed the drugs.
Herrera is scheduled to be sentenced on December 21. CNBC has yet to receive a comment from his lawyer.
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