A California physician was convicted on 26 felony charges for fraudulently distributing an unapproved cancer treatment over a six-year period, according to a Nov. 3 release from the FDA.
Benedict Liao, 81, of Fullerton, Calif., was found guilty of seven counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of selling a misbranded drug and eight counts of selling an unapproved new drug.
Using an alias, Mr. Liao submitted an investigational new drug application to the FDA in 2011 and 2012 for Allesgen. After the FDA placed full clinical holds on the trials due to submission deficiencies, Mr. Liao sold and distributed the drug as a "supplement," the release said.
Mr. Liao generally sold each bottle at $2,000 between July 2012 and June 2014 and received at least $850,000 in revenue, according to the FDA. From July 2014 through January 2018, he continued to sell the drug and made an additional $765,000 in revenue.
Mr. Liao's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 14, 2022. He will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each wire fraud count and three years’ imprisonment for each of the 19 additional counts.