Owner Of Framingham Company Linked to Outbreak Gets 14 Years

FRAMINGHAM, MA — The owner of a now-bankrupt Framingham pharmacy at the center of a 2012 nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak that killed over 100 people was re-sentenced to a longer prison term this week after a federal appeals court upheld his conviction.

Barry Cadden, 54, owned the New England Compounding Center (NECC), which produced steroid shots contaminated with fungal meningitis. About 800 people across the nation were sickened in the outbreak.

Cadden, a former Wrentham resident, was convicted in 2017 on charges of racketeering and fraud, and was originally sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to pay a $7.5 million fine. The federal government appealed the sentence, arguing it was too light.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals this month agreed and vacated Cadden's sentence, but upheld his conviction. A federal judge in Boston on Wednesday re-sentenced him to 14 years in prison and ordered him to pay $82 million in restitution to victims.

According to prosecutors, Cadden shipped a steroid used for back pain called preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) before the drug was tested for sterility. He also employed unlicensed pharmacy technicians and ducked U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight by saying NECC was filling prescriptions for individuals when it was in fact manufacturing prescription drugs, prosecutors said.

Federal prosecutors also appealed the 2017 sentence of Cadden's co-defendant, Glenn Chin, who was NECC's chief pharmacist. He was also set to be re-sentenced this week.