NEWARK –The State Attorney General’s Office and Division of Consumer Affairs have amended their lawsuit filed against a Mercer County prescription service company to include the Canadian pharmacy that provided medications to customers of the company.

Ultra Care Pharmacy, Ltd., located in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, is named as a defendant in the amended lawsuit. The state filed its original lawsuit in April against Karen Azarchi of Princeton Junction and her business, Medications4Less. Azarchi and her company have been barred from filling or refilling orders for prescription drugs, under a court order.

Undercover investigators from the Division of Consumer Affairs were able to order and receive anti-depressant drugs through Medications4Less and Ultra Care Pharmacy even though:

• one prescription was written by a fictitious physician who was listed on the Division’s public internet database as having a suspended license;
• another prescription was written by a fictitious physician who did not even appear on the Division’s public database of physicians on the internet; and
• a single patient successfully ordered two drugs, Parnate and Prozac, that are known to cause dangerous, sometimes fatal, interactions, on prescriptions written by two different fictitious doctors.

The state’s amended complaint alleges that, soon after the court barred Medications4Less from operating in New Jersey, the Canadian pharmacy directly contacted New Jersey consumers in an effort to continue filling prescriptions. The state charges that the defendants engaged in the practice of pharmacy without a license and violated the state’s Consumer Fraud Act by committing unconscionable commercial practices and by making false promises and misrepresentations. Federal law prohibits the importation of prescription drugs from abroad.

The undercover investigators also received incorrect amounts of anti-depressant prescription drugs, with more pills than prescribed being sent.

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