Drug dis­trib­u­tor, for­mer ex­ecs charged for fu­el­ing opi­oid cri­sis as le­gal cam­paign widens its scope

As fed­er­al and state at­tor­neys in­ten­si­fy their ef­forts to hold a whole net­work of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ac­tors ac­count­able for fu­el­ing the opi­oid epi­dem­ic, for the first time a drug dis­trib­u­tor is fac­ing crim­i­nal charges re­lat­ed to their sales tac­tics and com­pli­ance fail­ures.

Rochester Drug Co­op­er­a­tive, the sixth largest drug whole­saler in the US, has been ac­cused of dis­trib­ut­ing nar­cotics that it knew “were be­ing sold and used il­lic­it­ly” and fail­ing to re­port these im­prop­er us­es to au­thor­i­ties. Sep­a­rate­ly, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion has al­so charged RDC’s for­mer CEO Lau­rence Doud III and chief of com­pli­ance William Pietruszews­ki for crim­i­nal of­fens­es.

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