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SANTA ANA (CNS) - An 81-year-old physician faces decades in federal prison for hawking an unapproved cancer treatment that cost some customers up to $2,000 per bottle, federal prosecutors said today.
Benedict Liao of Fullerton was convicted Tuesday of seven counts of wire fraud, 11 counts of selling a misbranded drug and eight counts of selling an unapproved drug, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 14.
Liao operated the Oeyama-Moto Cancer Research Foundation, which had offices in Monterey Park and West Covina.
In 2011 and 2012 Liao applied for approval an ``investigational new drug'' with the Food and Drug Administration, claiming he would conduct clinical trials for a new product called Allesgen to treat and cure cancer, prosecutors said.
Liao was required to place a label on the medication declaring it new and limited to research purposes, prosecutors said. Instead, he distributed it with a label claiming it was a ``supplement'' and not a drug, which had not been evaluated by the FDA and wasn't intended to be used to treat a disease, prosecutors said.
Liao sold the drug from July 2012 through June 2014, sometimes at $2,000 a bottle, making about $850,000, prosecutors said. From July 2014 through January 2018 he took in about $765,000, prosecutors said.
Liao was prohibited from charging for it.
Liao faces up to 20 years for each wire fraud count and three years behind bars for each of the remaining counts.