Drug firm bosses face court after deaths of three babies

PHARMACEUTICAL company bosses are to appear in court next month over a hospital feeding scandal that left three babies dead.

ITH Pharma has been charged with seven counts of supplying a medicinal product that was not of the nature or quality specified.

It has also been charged with breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act in relation to allegedly contaminated products.

A four-year police investigation was launched after the death of a baby at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, in central London, in June 2014.

The deaths of two more babies were also investigated. In all, 20 children required treatment after contracting septicaemia while being treated at six hospitals across the UK.

The infants, who were all being looked after in premature baby units, were being given fluid as nutrition because they were

‘Lethal blood poisoning’

unable to feed themselves. The parents of one victim, Yousef AlKharboush, who died at nine days old in June 2014, said they would never recover.

He and his twin brother Abdulilah were born by emergency caesarean section at 32 weeks in May 2014. They were both fed intravenously and, while Abdulilah was not affected, Yousef contracted lethal blood poisoning.

This was allegedly as a result of being given a feeding product known as total parental nutrition. The charges focus on seven babies, three of whom died.

A spokesman for ITH Pharma, based in north-west London, said: ‘We will vigorously defend this case. Total parental nutrition has helped thousands of vulnerable infants survive premature and complex births. ITH imposes rigorous environmental monitoring on its manufacturing process.’

Representatives of the company will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday, December 17.