said. "We don't have the kind of authority that we need, and we don't
have the kind of clarity of the legislation that we need."
NECC joins the fray
Into this lightly regulated climate, NECC was born. In its first 4 years,
NECC appears to have grown slowly. In 2002, according to an FDA
inspection report, Mr. Cadden claimed the firm only dispensed 20,000
Rx's per year. The pharmacy was licensed in just 10 states.
But things started heating up in 2002, when the family opened
another company in the same Framingham building, called Medical
Sales Management. MSM, led by Dr. Douglas Conigliaro, formed to
exploit the very advertising and marketing opportunities Congress
had tried but failed to prevent. As the sales arm for New England
Compounding, Medical Sales Management exhibited at trade shows
and cold-called customers.
MSM seemed to inject new energy into NECC. The company rented
another suite from brother-in-law Greg Conigliaro and doubled its floor
space. Within just a couple of years the company was doing business in
all 50 states. In the next decade NECC's customer base would grow
from 100 to 3,000 hospitals, surgery centers and physician practices. By
2012, annual sales would top $30 million.
At about the same time, however, a pattern of serious quality prob-
lems was surfacing at NECC.
It started in July 2002, when the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy
received complaints about 4 patients falling ill after being injected
with NECC compounds: 2 from betamethasone, 2 from methylpred-
nisone acetate. The methylprednisone turned out to be both too
strong, or "superpotent," and contaminated by Burkholderia cepacia
J U L Y 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 4 9
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