A pharmacist who forged prescriptions to stock his wholesaling business with “specialised high-value” medicines has been suspended for 12 months, a General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) FtP committee determined at a hearing held between March 18-26.

Mohammed Amier, registration number 2076769, was found to have committed a “litany of dishonesty”, according to the hearing document.

Using his pharmacies, he bought the medications, posing as if they were for real patients – but he would instead export the medicines to the European market in “an act of wholesaling” for huge profits, it said.

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Amier’s lies included forging the signatures of pharmacists including that of his own business partner, “inventing” patients, designing stationery for an imagined clinic and lying to two NHS trusts, the medicines regulator and the GPhC itself, the committee found.

It stressed that Amier had admitted “the majority of his wrongdoing” prior to the hearing and was thought of as an “excellent clinician” by patients, with “a lot to offer the profession”.

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And it found that Amier had “expressed remorse and regret” and that his campaign of lies “did not put the public at a real risk of harm”.

But Amier conceded that this scheme could “possibly contribute to the shortage of medication to patients in the UK”, the document said.

And he told the committee that he had “probably profited by around £200,000 by his conduct”, which allowed him to buy a second pharmacy where he continued his scheme.

 

Web of lies

 

At the time of the events, Amier owned or part-owned two pharmacies - Pharmacy Bond and Mojji LS Ltd, trading as British Chemist - both of which held wholesale dealers licences (WDLs) issued by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

He admitted that he used both pharmacies to submit orders with pharmaceutical companies using “template prescriptions” that were “not in respect of genuine patient demand”, the document said.

And his “parallel trade” – which he admitted was “motivated by profit” - was lucrative, the committee heard. 

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In one 2020 transaction, he bought hospital-only product Stelara worth £54,781.82 from Oxford University Hospital NHS Trust, according to the document.

He told the trust that the “medications will be supplied to our patients who come to our clinic and not for any other purpose” – but instead sold the Stelara products to another company for £106,981, it said.

In April 2021, the medicines authority relaunched an investigation that it had closed in 2020 into Amier’s conduct as a wholesaler, it added. 

This “overlapped” with the investigation launched by the GPhC, which first received complaints about Amier in December 2019, the document said.

 

“Common practice”

 

Amier told the committee that he set up Pharmacy Bond as a distance-selling pharmacy (DSP) in 2012 but the pharmacy was a loss-maker and the partners each worked part-time as locums to keep it afloat.

Another witness added that a strong pre-Brexit pound “made it attractive to export high-value medications from the UK to Europe” and pharmacies obtained WDLs for this purpose.

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In 2013, Amier encountered a now-defunct company that helped him acquire a WDL and “taught him the wholesale business”, the committee heard.

He learned from this company to use “dummy” prescriptions to get stock from manufacturers and to “challenge” those that refused on the grounds that they were “breaking competition law”, it heard. 

Amier claimed that he had been taught this was a “common practice” in the wholesaling industry.

 

“Template prescriptions”

 

Amier would use “template prescriptions” to order stock from pharmaceutical companies that required pharmacies to prove that their orders were being made “against an actual prescription”, the hearing document said.

The companies had introduced this measure for “high-value medicines” to “prevent [them] from leaving the UK and going overseas” and thereby manage medicines shortages, it added.

But a witness told the committee that “no regulatory requirement” prevents pharmacies from “selling the medicine to patients abroad”.

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The committee heard that “for the most part”, when Pharmacy Bond ordered stock for wholesale supply, it used accounts that it stated were for its pharmacy business.

Amier insisted that the prescriptions were not “false” but merely “templates” because they “were not signed by him”. 

But he tried to make these “templates” appear like prescriptions that had “the relevant patient details redacted” by carefully placing a “pharmacy label” over that section, the document said.

The committee found that he acted to the very definition of “false” - “pretending that he had genuine patients and that the medications were to be supplied to those patients”.

 

Forged signatures

 

Meanwhile, Amier frequently forged the name and signature of his Pharmacy Bond business partner - referred to in the papers as R2 - who is also a registered pharmacist, according to the document.

This included various documents such as fake orders or agreements with outside organisations, but R2 showed the committee that the signature on his passport did not match and stressed that he was unaware of the fraud, it said. 

Amier had also forged the signature of another pharmacist, referred to as AP, in an attempt to “fraudulently” secure “high-value products” from manufacturer Janssen-Cilag, it added.

He created a fake service level agreement between Mojji/British Chemist and a hospital trust, with AP’s signature on the document, the committee heard.

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But AP said in a witness statement that she had never worked at the trust or had “any involvement” with Amier – while he said he had just “remembered” her name and used it in his forgeries.

And Amier created another elaborate forgery to try to secure a high-value hospital medicine from Janssen-Cilag, according to the document.

He found a specialist doctor on LinkedIn and told him that an overseas prescription needed “transcribing” by a UK doctor, sending them “a letter from a doctor in Arabic” that he had fabricated as proof, it said.

The UK doctor pointed out that the letter lacked the overseas prescriber’s “name or credentials”, but Amier replied that they were “in Arabic and translated them”, it added.

 

“Worst thing”

 

Amier told the committee that the FtP process was “the worst thing that has ever happened to him” and initially said that he had “no intention of wholesaling” again.

He said that he had “made a lot of mistakes, but only ever as a wholesaler”, and that he felt “really bad” about bringing R2 and others into this case.

However, he later said at the hearing that he might in fact resume wholesale trading, but “only” for “generic medicines” that were “not high value”.

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He told the regulator that he was still “ambitious” and wanted to “open more branches of his pharmacy”.

The committee found that one allegation against Amier was not proved.

Amier was accused of being dishonest when he claimed that the MHRA had approved another company to act as Pharmacy Bond’s agent but the GPhC found that Amier had expressed “a reasonable belief”. 

 

“Deplorable”

 

But the regulator concluded that Amier had engaged in a “deep and sophisticated level of deception over a prolonged period of time” and that he “continued to tell untruths”, even when confronted by the GPhC. 

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It said that Amier’s conduct “would be viewed as deplorable” and shows “an attitudinal shortcoming that is arguably difficult to remedy”.

While Amier had provided the committee with ten testimonials from colleagues and patients, it described irregularities that indicates “they may not be aware of the nature of these proceedings” and as such “attached limited weight” to them.

 

“Finely balanced decision”

 

But it heard that Amier’s dishonesty was towards the “lower end” of the scale and accepted that there was “no evidence of actual patient harm”.

Despite his repeated production of fake prescriptions, the committee noted that no “false information made its way to patients’ medical records”.

It found that Amier’s dishonesty was not “so serious that removal is the only appropriate and proportionate response”.

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In a “finely balanced decision”, it ruled that patients would be “permanently deprived” of Amier’s services as an “excellent clinician” if it removed him from the register.

Instead, it issued Amier with a suspension for “the maximum period of 12 months with a review” and imposed interim suspension orders. 

Read the full 64-page determination here.