6th July, 2018
A German Court on Friday sentenced a former pharmacist who diluted cancer medication in order to increase his profit margin to 12 years in prison.
The court in Essen found the 48-year-old defendant tampered with cancer medication for a period of about four years in order to finance a luxurious lifestyle, handing him a prison sentence and a life-long professional ban.
The court said in its verdict that the defendant had created in his pharmacy a substance for drip infusions “the quality of which was not insignificantly lower” than the original product.
Judge Johannes Hidding said: “No less than 14,500 medications were insufficiently dosed between 2012 and 2016’ in an operation that cost German insurance companies some 17 million Euros (20 million dollars).”