Gov: NECC May Have Misled Regulators

New England Compunding Center, which has been tied to the national memingitis outbreak, may have misled regulators and completed work beyond its state license, said Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

The Framingham-based specialty pharmacy produced a steroid, that health officials believe

The governor told reporters Wednesday, "What they were supposed to be doing is filling specific prescriptions for specific patients, as I think any of us would understand a pharmacy to do. What they were doing instead is making big batches and selling them out of state as a manufacturer would and that is certainly outside of their state license."

While the compounding , health officials said as many as

Patrick said, "We don’t know everything yet, there’s some work still underway that we are doing through the Department of Public Health with the FDA. ... I will say it does seem like the agencies both at the state and the federal level may have been misled by some of the information we were given.

"There are some directives I have given with respect to other facilities that are owned by the same ownership as NECC, which we will be public on very shortly. We are putting some reminders out to these pharmacies that if they compound—if they basically manufacture—which is what NECC ceased to have done, they are outside the bounds of their state licenses and they need federal authority and permission to do that.

"And there is what ..."