April 13, 2012

"He told everyone to lie on the floor," Pharmacist Frank Wong told The Associated Press. "Everyone was panicking. We never saw things like this before."

It happened on Thursday, April 12, after two men, one brandishing a gun had entered a New York City pharmacy on First Avenue at East 119th Street,  and demanded Oxycontin and Percocet, two addictive painkillers.    Six customers, including an infant, and three employees inside the store, were ordered to lie behind the the counter while Wong began gathering the drugs.

Minutes later, one of the attackers was dead, fatally shot, by two bullets from a police revolver.  The attack and its aftermath are shown in this police surveillance video released to the public.

Video via NBC New York: http://nbcnewyork.com.

Three patrol officers, already outside the pharmacy after a separate 911 call are seen in a surveillance video with guns drawn, telling the suspects to come out with their hands up. One man, dressed in grey sweats and a black sweat shirt, came out and was grabbed by an officer, but Wyatt came out with his gun drawn.

Wong told a Wall Street Journal reporter that this was the first time the pharmacy had been held up in 25 years but he'd been aware of a rash of other drug store robberies around the area, including one just a few days ago in the same neighborhood. "It's gotten so crazy," he said.

A brutal string of pharmacy attacks in the New York area included one in Medford, Long Island last Father's Day, that claimed four lives.  Nationally, according to the New York Times, pharmacy robberies skyrocketed by 79% in 2011.  Many have involved addicts desperate to steal so-called "super pain-killers" like Oxycodone and Oxycontin.

Applied DNA Sciences is working with pharmacists on Long Island to show how its smartDNA anti-intruder spray can be one tool in the effort to defend against the  rising tide of similar attacks.   The spray unit is mounted at exits in a pharmacy, spraying a fleeing criminal with a solution mixing water with an indentifying mark derived from plant DNA.  The system is seen as a law enforcement technology which can powerfully help to deter crime.

At a press conference in February, New York State Senator Kemp Hannon said of the system:  “This new state-of-the-art technology will provide yet another tool to aid in the prevention of crimes, and will assist law enforcement in the apprehension and convictions of those who perpetrate them,” Senator Hannon said. “You can track the person who is robbing. So it improves security, and is almost invisible.”

Senator Hannon is working on a broad initiative attacking the roots of the sharp increase in pharmacy crime, including better awareness of security best practices among pharmacies, treating the problem of addiction, and on other fronts.  At Applied DNA Sciences, a company with strong roots in our Long Island community, we support all-round efforts to stem the problem such as this, and hope we can contribute to a solution.

April 5, 2012

The appearance in the U.S. of a counterfeit—and medically useless—version of the anti-cancer drug Avastin seems to be spreading.  In a Safety Information Alert, issued on Tuesday, April 3, the Federal Drug Administration announced that it has uncovered fake injectable vials of Bevacizumab, marketed in the U.S. as Avastin.  The counterfeit drug, the FDA stated, which was found at unnamed “medical practices”, was said to contain “no active ingredient,” and carried the brand name used for Avastin in Turkey: Altuzan.

The Tuesday announcement stated that “packaging or vials found in the U.S. that claim to be Roche’s Altuzan with lot number B6021 should be considered counterfeit.”

The fake drugs were imported into the U.S. by a company called Richards Pharma, also known as Richards Services, Warwick Healthcare Solutions, or Ban Dune Marketing Inc (BDMI).   Importing Avastin is itself illegal, since the FDA allows only U.S.-manufactured Avastin to be sold in the country.  (Genentech is the current producer in the U.S.)  Speaking of the importer of the fake drug, the FDA stated: “Many, if not all, of the products sold and distributed through this distributor have not been approved by the FDA.”

Only two months ago, authorities revealed that a fake version of Avastin had been found at nineteen medical practices in the United States, citing a different distributor.  In that case , the counterfeit version contained starch, salt, and in some cases, acetone.   The latter is a solvent often used in nail polish remover.  That time, a company calling itself Montana Healthcare Solutions was identified as the source of the illegally imported drug.  CBS News interviewed the owner of Montana Healthcare Solutions at a residence in Barbados.

Doctors use Bevacizumab (Avastin) in combination with other chemotherapy to extend lives and quality of life for a large number of patients suffering from some of the most vicious of cancers.

In the scary surveillance video below, a pharmacy worker in Manhattan finds himself looking into the barrel of a robber's gun, a robber who means business.

"Told us to 'get on the ground and he want some medications. Give me all your narcotics. Stay on the ground and don't look at me' ," said the worker at Health Source Pharmacy near 68th St. and Second Avenue in the center of New York City.

Like many in the string of brutal pharmacy attacks in New York and nationally in recent months, the target drug was a so-called "super-pain-killer," in this case Oxycodone, according to ABC News.

It was the pharmacy robbery was the third armed robbery in Manhattan in two weeks. Applied DNA Sciences, located in Long Island where many recent and fatal robberies have occurred, can help the community with its smartDNA product, which covers a fleeing criminal with a DNA-infused mist.  The criminal is marked with a code that constitutes an an ID that will stand up in any court.

Below we include a clip of the robbery as released by the NYPD.