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• Posted March 6, 2024

Co-founder of Company Behind Deadly 2012 Meningitis Outbreak Gets Up to 15 Years in Prison

Barry Cadden, co-founder of a specialty compounding pharmacy behind a deadly meningitis outbreak in 2012, has been handed a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years in Michigan for involuntary manslaughter.

On Tuesday, Cadden pleaded no contest to the charges against him, the Associated Press reported.

His sentence will be served concurrently with the 14 1/2-year sentence he is already serving under a federal conviction for fraud and other crimes.

Cadden co-founded the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts. Twelve years ago, about 100 people died and 800 in total were made ill across 20 states after receiving injections of mold-contaminated steroids sourced from the company. Most had needed the injections for back pain.

Speaking in a federal court in Boston in 2017, Cadden said: "I am sorry for the whole range of suffering that resulted from my company's drugs," the AP reported.

At the time, prosecutors said Cadden's company failed consumers in multiple ways -- cutting back on lab disinfections, shipping products before testing they were safe and ignoring repeat warnings about the safety of methods used in the lab. All of this was done to save the company costs, prosecutors said.

Cadden appeared Monday in Livingston County court, northwest of Detroit. He pleaded no contest to each of the 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter leveled against him -- one for each Michigan resident who died, according to the AP.

"Patients must be able to trust their medications are safe, and doctors must be assured they aren't administering deadly poison,"Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told the AP.

A criminal case for the company's pharmacist, Glenn Chin, is pending. His next court date is set for March 18, the AP said.

More information

Find out more about meningitis at the Mayo Clinic.

SOURCE: Associated Press

What This Means for You

The co-founder of a Massachusetts drug company behind a deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison by a Michigan judge.