An Oregon woman is accused of helping to sell a drug smuggled from Hong Kong and China to cat owners across the country to treat a fatal cat coronavirus disease.
Nancy Ross of White City moderated a private Facebook group called “FIP Warriors 5.0,” which stands for feline infectious peritonitis coronavirus disease.
She used the group to hawk the illicit drug and directed customers to pay a Texas woman, who is accused of making millions selling vials of the drug for nearly three years, according to an affidavit filed this week in federal court in Portland.
Ross and Nicole Randall in Texas are named in a civil forfeiture affidavit that alleges they illegally smuggled and sold a drug not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for animals or humans.
But their motive remains a matter of debate in the veterinarian community.
Without the antiviral drug called GS-441524, cats die of the disease, many vets say.
A feline coronavirus variant triggers FIP, though it’s not the one that causes COVID-19. Up to 95% of cats diagnosed with the disease will die without treatment, according to UC Davis veterinary scientists who have studied the virus.
Cats can develop the disease at any age, but it’s typically diagnosed in those between 6 months and 2 years old, according to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
“You can see the altruistic reason for doing it. Thousands and thousands and thousands of cats are alive because of this drug,” said veterinarian Drew Weigner, past president of the nonprofit EveryCat Health Foundation, which helped fund research into finding a drug to treat the fatal cat coronavirus.
GS-441524 was developed and patented by the California-based Gilead Sciences, the biopharmaceutical company known for its antiviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C, influenza and COVID-19.
Gilead has refused to license the drug for animals, though, Weigner said, concerned its similarity to the company’s remdesivir, a drug originally developed to treat Ebola, would interfere with the FDA-approval process for remdesivir to treat COVID-19.
Without a legal use for GS-441524 in the United States, China began manufacturing it and selling it online to people in the United States.
Weigner said he doesn’t know Ross or Randall but believes “all they’re trying to do is save cats’ lives.”
PACKAGE INTERCEPTED
A tip in 2021 led U.S. postal inspectors to intercept an Express Worldwide parcel from Hong Kong addressed to Ross.
It contained 14 yellow boxes advertising facial masks for “all skin types” and at least a handful of purple foil packets advertising chewable dietary supplements. Each of the boxes and packets had a caricature of a white cat on the front.
But inside every box, investigators found six vials containing a clear liquid. In the packets, they found unmarked white, round tablets.
A forensic chemical lab analysis revealed each vial and tablet contained the unapproved GS-441524. Ross had received five similar shipments delivered to her home between November 2020 and February 2021, according to the affidavit.
An undercover criminal investigator with the FDA messaged Ross via the Facebook group.
The online group, which has more than 43,000 members and depicts a cat holding a sword and a shield, was used to market the smuggled drug to cat owners in Oregon and across the United States from September 2019 through last July, FDA special agent Hilary Rickher wrote in the affidavit.
Ross directed the undercover investigator to send money for the drug to Randall, the apparent ringleader of the smuggling operation, according to the affidavit. Ross directed the payments be made through either PayPal, Zelle or CashApp, the affidavit said.
Though the Facebook group claimed it was founded “strictly not for profit” by fellow cat owners whose felines “were or are still battling a terminal illness,” Randall, Ross and other unnamed alleged collaborators jacked up prices of the drug, according to the FDA investigator.
A federal analysis showed Randall alone sold $9.6 million worth of the drugs over about two years, the affidavit said.
Randall instructed shippers from Hong Kong and China to falsely describe the drug on import documents as “essential oils” and “beauty products,” conceal it in boxes labeled “cat shampoo’’ and “facial masks” and use fake names for those receiving the shipments, according to the affidavit.
For example, the Facebook group’s page instructed customers to “NEVER MENTION ‘CAT MEDICINE’ IN THE PAYMENT,” if paying with Venmo or PayPal, according to a screenshot of the page in the affidavit.
Randall sold the drugs for between $65 to $385 a vial – compared to the $25 to $35 per vial sold through Chinese and Hong Kong e-commerce websites, according to the FDA agent.
A spreadsheet found in Randall’s Google email showed customer orders of at least 58,460 vials and 236,836 pills of GS-441524 from July 2020 through June 6, 2022, the affidavit said.
The vials and pills were shipped from Randall’s home to addresses across the United States and to unidentified foreign countries, the affidavit said.
Neither Ross nor Randall has been arrested, but they’re both named in the affidavit filed in support of civil forfeiture of the assets from the operation.
TESLA, BANK ACCOUNTS SEIZED
Stacy Marczak-Grande, a Florida-based attorney who represents Randall, said she’s committed to defending her client because her own cat, now 8 years old, suffered from FIP and remains alive today because of GS-441524.
Marczak-Grande said it’s a shame the drug isn’t approved for cats yet.
The government seized five of Randall’s bank and brokerage accounts and her 2022 Tesla Model Y car last year based on a warrant signed by a federal magistrate judge in Oregon.
The warrant identified the bank accounts and car as proceeds from the “crime of smuggling” and subject to forfeiture, according to the affidavit. It also alleged Randall, now 35, used the proceeds to buy several properties, including a ranch in Leander, Texas, in July 2021.
Ross, 59, did not return messages left on her phone or sent to her “looneycatt” email address, which references a prior last name “Looney.” In 2020 and 2021, Ross had a company called Cat Lady Consultant registered in her name, state records show.
The affidavit doesn’t say if Ross profited from the sales.
Oregon’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, through its spokesperson Kevin Sonoff, declined to comment on the case Friday.
The EveryCat Health Foundation, previously called the Winn Feline Foundation, funds feline medical research, and had funded studies for 50-plus years to find a drug to treat feline infectious peritonitis.
The foundation funded research by UC Davis professor emeritus Niels Pedersen, who worked with past and current scientists from Gilead, and found GS-441524 “safe and efficacious” in treating cats with naturally occurring FIP, according to the university.
But Gilead was concerned that any side effects from GS-441524 would have to be reported and investigated and could harm the approval of the very similar drug of remdesivir for use by humans, Weigner said.
The FDA granted full approval of remdesivir in October 2020 for children and adults at high risk for severe disease from COVID-19.
In the meantime, the FDA hasn’t done anything to crack down on black market sales of GS-441524 originating from Chinese websites for the last four years, Weigner said.
In 2019, UC Davis held a symposium on feline infectious peritonitis coronavirus disease and Chinese developers of the drug were invited and attended, he said.
People were reminded, though, that the drug couldn’t be sold in the United States, he said.
“We know it’s there. We know it works. We can’t prescribe it,” Weigner said.
— Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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