Barry Cadden, the former owner of New England Compounding Center (NECC), pled no contest to in connection to the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 11 people in Michigan.
According to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Cadden pled no contest to 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter. The plea accompanies a sentencing agreement of 10-15 years in jail.
The 2012 meningitis outbreak is responsible for killing at least 76 people and sickening nearly 800 in 23 states. A number of those were here in Michigan.
It is considered the largest public health crisis ever caused by a pharmaceutical product.
According to the AG's office, the 11 people in Michigan died as a result of injection treatments at the Michigan Pain Specialists Clinic in Livingston County.
Patients were given injections of the steroid methylprednisolone, which was compounded and produced at NECC and shipped to Michigan.
Donna Kruzich, Paula Brent, Lyn Laperriere, Mary Plettl, Gayle Gipson, Patricia Malafouris, Emma Todd, Jennie Barth, Ruth Madouse, Salley Roe, and Karina Baxter died as a result of being injected with the contaminated drug.
“Cadden ran his pharmaceutical lab with a shocking and abhorrent disregard for basic safety rules and practices, and in doing so he tragically killed eleven Michigan patients,” Nessel said in a statement.
Cadden is already time in prison. In 2021, he was resented to 14 years in federal prison in connection to the outbreak.
