The owner of a North Carolina-based sports supplement company Musclegen pleaded guilty to selling unapproved drugs and agreed to forfeit the money earned from the illegal business. Selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) are drugs under development for osteoporosis, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, but Musclegen owner Brian M. Parks admitted to selling these and other drug compounds as undeclared ingredients in products marketed as sports supplements and research chemicals.

By pleading guilty to federal charges, he and his Cary, North Carolina-based company MedFitRX, Inc. (now known as MedFit Sarmacuticals Inc.) face an agreed upon forfeiture of almost $1.2 million earned from products sold between 2017 and 2019. However, a plea agreement by Parks noted the full forfeiture would be due only if he missed an agreed payment of $.35 million by February of 2021.

He waived his right to be charged by indictment and face a grand jury on one or more charges, and instead pleaded guilty to one count of introduction of unapproved new drugs into interstate commerce. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 33 months in prison, although the plea agreement allows for a possible total three level reduction for accepting responsibility and cooperating with law enforcement, which would mean a maximum sentence of 24 months imprisonment.

According to court documents, Parks and MedFitRX imported SARMs and other drug ingredients from China from 2016 to 2019. The defendants were accused of importing these compounds in a manner designed to avoid federal scrutiny, including labeling shipments as “biscuit mix powder,” “corn powder,” “grain mix powder,” “bread mix powder,” and “milk tea powder.” Documents also show the defendants developed, manufactured and labeled drug products in both North Carolina and Ohio and marketed and distributed these products to the bodybuilding and fitness communities across the U.S.

The charges claim Parks and his company intended to mislead and defraud customers by misrepresenting these drug products as dietary supplements and failing to disclose the drug ingredients on the labels. They also falsely claimed the company was licensed and registered to sell SARMs.

An attorney and expert on steroids, acknowledged hundreds of SARMs and peptide companies have sold misbranded products for a long time, but only a small percentage have been prosecuted. Its believed the solution to the illegal SARMs and drug sales to sports and fitness users is enforcement, not more laws. The FDA has made it crystal clear: SARMs are not dietary ingredients and can not be sold as dietary supplements. Searching for illegal ingredients has never been as easy as it is using HawkScanner. With our feature-rich platform an illegal ingredient can not slide through the cracks, our live monitoring will alert you when an ingredient has been flagged. Sign up for a free account here at no charge today.