Chemist ‘unethical’ over opioids

A rogue pharmacist has been caught dispensing hundreds of steroids to 12 different patients on behalf of a doctor who was disciplined last year for prescribing excessive amounts of the restricted drug at the behest of disgraced sports scientist Stephen Dank.

Sasha Kanthan.

A rogue suburban pharmacist has been caught dispensing hundreds of steroids to 12 different patients on behalf of a doctor who was disciplined last year for prescribing excessive amounts of the restricted drug at the behest of disgraced sports scientist Stephen Dank.

Tony Saab, the sole proprietor of Pharma Save Granville in western Sydney, also dispensed 1500 hormone tablets and injections and 1000 valium tablets to the same patient on the same day, meaning it was “obvious” the patient was abusing or misappropriating the drugs, according to the Health Care Complaints Commission.

He also dispensed a staggering amount of Oxycodone, an addictive opioid with an estimated street value of $40 a pill. In less than two months ­between December 2015 and January 2016, 1500 Oxycodone tablets passed through Mr Saab’s pharmacy.

The HCCC said it “beggared belief” he could not have been aware of the drug’s potential for abuse and “profitable diversion”. In December, the commission ruled that Mr Saab had acted ­unethically and improperly by dispensing “high quantities” of opioids and benzodiazepines on forged prescriptions, including Oxycodone, fentanyl, Xanax and valium.

“The gravity and repetition of his conduct for 38 patients … from January 2015 to March 2017 is conduct of a nature which strikes at the heart of public confidence in the pharmacy profession,” the HCCC found.

Mr Saab dispensed steroids and peptides on behalf of self-styled medical “bad boy” Sasha Kanthan, who last year was found to have acted unethically and improperly in prescribing human growth hormones to 17 patients during an eight-day stint at Dank’s RegenaCell Clinic in Bankstown in 2016.

Dr Kanthan, a senior emergency doctor, prescribed “excessive” amounts of steroids at the behest of the disgraced sports scientist, believing Dank’s now-defunct western Sydney peptide business was on the verge of achieving the medical equivalent of a “dotcom” boom.

The HCCC found Dr Kanthan was “out of his depth” when he embarked on a “new area of practice” that involved writing off-label prescriptions for “performance and image-enhancing drugs” that he knew “little about.”

The professional standards committee found that Dr Kanthan had failed to conduct due ­diligence on Dank’s connection to the “abuse of illicit drugs” and had allowed himself to be influenced by the sport scientist’s ­“unclear motives”.

Dank is facing 20 charges in the Northern Territory over allegations he seriously harmed one person and recklessly endangered 16 others while working as a peptide consultant at an anti-ageing clinic in Darwin in 2017.

Dr Kanthan is employed as a “senior medical officer” at a public hospital in Victoria.