NECC Workers Detail Decline

From Donna Borton

Two former employees of the company that shipped thousands of vials of deadly contaminated steroids across the country today described the deteriorating conditions at their workplace that led to a deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis.
Testifying in Livingston District Court in Howell, Mich. Owen Finnegan and Steven Haynes told Judge Shauna Murphy how production was rushed, tests were skipped and sterility standards abandoned in 2012 when the New England Compounding Center was flooded with orders.
Finnegan, who worked as a pharmacy technician in the clean room where methylprednisolone acetate was produced, said the emphasis was getting the drugs out the door. Cleaning logs were not being initialed and he and his colleagues were asked to fill out the cleaning logs whether or not the required cleaning had actually been done.
The drug was being shipped to doctors and clinics for injection into the spines and joints of unsuspecting patients.
The testimony came in the criminal trial of two key figures at NECC, Barry Cadden and Glenn Chin. Both have been charged with 11 counts of second degree murder for their roles in producing tainted drugs that took the lives of 11 Michigan resident.
Cadden was president and part owner of NECC. Chin was Finnegan's boss and supervised the clean room where the fungus laden drugs were produced.
Finnegan said it was Chin who told him to ship out drugs on which sterility and other tests had not yet been performed.
He also described an NECC process called "botching" the lots in which new and untested drugs were given old lot numbers to make it appear they had been tested. In the rush to fill orders just before the outbreak Finnegan said drugs were being shipped out on the same day they were produced.
Haynes, who worked at NECC from 2010 until it was shuttered in the fall of 2012, gave testimony backing up Finnegn's.
He said that when he questioned Chin about drugs being shipped out before tests were performed, Chin told him, 'That's why we have lawyers.'"
Haynes also described how production suddenly stopped in the fall of 2012 shortly before inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration raided NECC's Framingham, Mass. facilities. He said suddenly stock was being thrown out and everyone was assigned to cleaning.
Haynes said he and other workers were frustrated because no one would tell them what was going on. He said their superiors told them the problem was not with the NECC drugs but with the doctors who were injecting them into patients.
Testimony is scheduled to resume Wednesday at 8:30 a.m.
Chin and Cadden already are serving federal prison terms following their convictions on racketeering, conspiracy and mail fraud charge. Chin's release on the federal charges is due on Jan. 1, 2025 while Cadden's release date is April 4, 2025.
If convicted on the Michigan charges both could face life sentences. The current pre-trial hearings are being held to determine if there is sufficient evidence to bring Cadden and Chin to trial.