Pharmacy Exec Behind Meningitis Outbreak Gets Longer Prison Sentence

A longer prison sentence has been handed to the founder of a now-closed Massachusetts pharmaceutical facility responsible for the 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 100 people and sickened hundreds of others.

Barry Cadden, who was president and co-owner of the New England Compounding Center (NECC), received a 14.5-year sentence from a federal judge Wednesday. Cadden was initially given a nine-year sentence, but that was tossed out last year by an appeals court, the Associated Press reported.

The meningitis outbreak was caused by mold-tainted steroid injections produced by Cadden's company in Framingham, about 20 miles west of Boston, the AP reported. During the trial, prosecutors said Cadden's company risked the safety of patients to boost profits by ignoring warning signs that its products were unsafe and failing to properly disinfect its facilities.

"Mr. Cadden ran an operation full of fraud and opportunism that was so risky to patients and he profited well off of it," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan, chief of the health care fraud unit in the Massachusetts federal prosecutors office. "He knew the dangers he was creating for patients in this country every time he got behind the wheel at NECC."