In these cases, federal authorities allege that physicians buy prescription drugs from companies or brokers outside of the United States and then offer them to their patients, even though the medicines were not manufactured in facilities inspected or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as required by law, according to court records.
The federal cases involve brand-name drugs, such as the cancer treatments Avastin and Rituxan, which were imported from Turkey, India, the European Union or other countries, but were not approved for import or sale in the United States.
Authorities says doctors are getting the imported drugs from unapproved sources to get large discounts — in some cases, 20 percent less than the medicines would cost from U.S.-licensed distributors, the government alleged.
Recent cases against two East Tennessee cancer doctors, for instance, have brought convictions, with one defendant serving a two-year federal prison term and the other still awaiting sentencing.
While neither of the Tennessee cases involved drugs that were alleged to be ineffective or unsafe, authorities say, recent cases nationwide have involved the importation of “counterfeit” drugs, which had little — or in some cases none — of the active ingredients of the brand-name medications they were purported to be.
