Pharmacy founders have diverse backgrounds Toll of the dead and sickened

BOSTON— The pharmacy linked to the nation’s deadly outbreak of meningitis is owned by two brothers- in- law who brought different but complementary skills to the venture: One’s a pharmacist, the other a risktaking businessmanwho made his mark recycling old computers, fishing rope and mattresses.

NowtheNewEngland Compounding Center and its practices are under scrutiny as investigators try to determine howa steroid solution supplied by the pharmacy apparently became contaminated with a fungus. The drug has sickened nearly 200 people in 13 states, killing 15. Most of the patients had received spinal injections of the steroid for back pain.

Barry Cadden and Gregory Conigliaro founded NECC in 1998 as a compounding pharmacy, a laboratory that custommixes solution, creams and other medicines in dosages and forms often unavailable from pharmaceutical companies.

Cadden, 45, who is married to Conigliaro’s sister, had the medical know- howbehind NECC, earning a pharmacy degree from theUniversity of Rhode Island. In a 2002 newsletter, he wrote that compounding had rebounded, after falling offwhen pharmaceutical companies began manufacturing drugs in the 1950s and ’ 60s, and could help patients with painful conditions that demand “novel approaches.”

Conigliaro, 46, is a TuftsUniversity- educated engineer and a member of the AirNational Guard, fromwhich he retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2007. He started Conigliaro Industries in 1991.

The company contended that prettymuch anything could be recycled, and it did so in creative ways.

Conigliaro and his father developed Boston’s Best Patch, a potholefilling mix that included the plastic housing from discarded computers. The company’s Plas CreteWall Blocks combine cement, sand, water and recycled plastic. Conigliaro Industries also boasts that it figured out howto recycle up to 90 percent of a discarded mattress.

Conigliaro’s success at the recycling companywas repeated at the compounding pharmacy, and in 2006, the partners started another pharmacy, Ameridose, whichwould eventually report annual revenue of $ 100 million — more than 10 times NECC’s. Ameridose products haven’t been linked to any problems. Cadden has surrendered his pharmacy license and resigned from Ameridose. Latest numbers fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Illnesses: 197 Deaths: 15 States: 13; Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

Acompany spokesman said Cadden and Conigliaro are focused on helping the investigation.