Suspended pharmacist linked to Bombers scandal makes extortion claim
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A compounding pharmacist who played a key role in the Essendon peptides scandal has been suspended by the medical industry watchdog following a raid of his South Yarra pharmacy business.
Nima Alavi was suspended by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) last month and is unable to practise while he remains the subject of an investigation that also involves the Victorian Pharmacy Authority.
Suspended pharmacist Nima Alavi.Credit: Nine
AHPRA investigators attended Alavi’s pharmacy in the Como Centre earlier this year, where they seized script pads as part of their long-running probe.
Several doctors and other pharmacists have also been interviewed by AHPRA investigators.
The AHPRA register of practitioners lists Alavi as suspended, but a spokeswoman for the watchdog said it could not confirm the reason. “Until matters are on the public record, we are unable to provide comment,” she said.
The 44-year-old pharmacist initially told this masthead he had been suspended because of an “administrative error”, but then claimed to be the victim of an extortion plot.
“An unknown person had asked me for money in the days prior to your call, otherwise he would start shopping around a story which would discuss amongst other things my suspension, re-enliven the Essendon drugs scandal, as well as my indirect involvement in a company that was being investigated in relation to the supply of banned substances which were given to a horse that ran in the Kentucky Derby,” Alavi stated in a text message.
He said the “unknown person” had demanded $50,000.
“From your line of questioning, you are in possession of that malicious and salacious story, or parts of it, likely from that person,” Alavi stated in the text message.
The Victorian Pharmacy Authority did not respond to questions regarding its role in the investigation.
Alavi was a key player in the Essendon peptides saga, which resulted in 34 players being found guilty of doping charges and banned for the 2016 season.
Until his suspension last month, he provided individually tailored medicines for patients who are often unable to take commercially available drugs.
Under an exemption in the Therapeutic Goods Act, compounding pharmacists can legally compound substances that are not Therapeutic Goods Administration-approved – such as thymosin variants and other peptides – for patients with a doctor’s script.
During the Essendon probe, it was revealed Alavi received raw materials in 2012 to compound a form of thymosin and hexarelin, a banned peptide that stimulates production of growth hormone, from a pharmaceutical manufacturer in China.
The shipment from Shanghai was arranged by Shane Charter, a biochemist who previously supplied peptides through his “Dr Ageless” clinics.
Biochemist Shane Charter and Alavi were named in the Essendon supplements scandal.Credit: Wayne Taylor
The peptides prepared by Alavi were then provided to sports scientist Stephen Dank, who allegedly injected Essendon players with the drug.
Alavi, Charter and Dank were interviewed by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, but none of the three men appeared for cross-examination before the AFL’s anti-doping hearing.
In 2014, Alavi told the media he was unaware whether the players were injected with the banned substance thymosin beta 4 or the less powerful non-synthetic version of the drug Thymomodulin.
In an interview with the ABC’s 7.30, Alavi said he had been asked by Dank to produce a substance that contained what Charter described as thymosin, but was forced to hand over the mixture to Dank without being sure of what it contained.
He said anti-doping investigators would also be unable to determine the exact nature of the substance administered to players.
The AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal found in March 2015 that it was “not comfortably satisfied” the 34 Bombers players had violated anti-doping rules. That decision was overturned following an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which resulted in bans for the players until November 2016. Former Bombers captain Jobe Watson was later stripped of the Brownlow Medal he won in 2012.
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