Lexington doctor found guilty of selling patients non-FDA-approved drugs

A jury has found a Lexington psychiatrist guilty of charges related to selling patients non-FDA-approved drugs used to treat addiction disorders over the course of a decade, according to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On Friday, 66-year-old Rahim Shafa was convicted of international money laundering, illegally importing merchandise contrary to law and receiving and delivering misbranded drugs, the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a press release. The guilty verdict was the result of a two-week trial that followed two grand jury indictments of Shafa, one in August 2020 and second superseding one in June 2021.

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Shafa owned and operated a psychiatry practice called Novel Psychopharmacology, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. From approximately January 2008 to January 2018, he was part of an international money laundering scheme that allowed him to buy naltrexone pellet implants, disulfiram pellet implants and disulfiram injections from Hong Kong.

The FDA has approved the use of certain forms of naltrexone and disulfiram as treatment for alcohol and opioid addition disorders, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. However, the implantable pellet form of these drugs is not among the FDA-approved treatments.

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Shafa falsified shipping documents to hide the fact that he was having these drugs shipped to him from Hong Kong, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. For example, packages containing naltrexone pellet implants were falsely declared as “plastic beads in plastic tubes.”

Shafa sold these drugs to his patients and implanted them into their bodies without informing the patients of the full risks of the drugs, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. Patients testified at trial that the implants resulted in infections and other health complications.

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“For roughly a decade, this defendant manipulated and exploited our healthcare system. He circumvented the FDA approval process for drugs from overseas — systems established to protect and support public health and safety,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in the release. “This conduct jeopardized patient safety and undermined the very foundation of our regulatory system.”

Shafa is set to be sentenced in federal court on May 15, the U.S. Attorney’s office said. The charges provide for a total possible sentence of up to 41 years in prison, up to six years of supervised release and a fine of up to $501,000.

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