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A pharmacist who supplied over 60,000 tablets of the controlled drug Xanax to overseas charities without a wholesale distribution authorisation (WDA) for human medicines has been suspended for six months.

Osama Hamed admitted to a fitness to practise committee principle hearing that he supplied 1,080 boxes of Xanax 500mcg, each box containing 60 tablets, without the necessary wholesaler’s licence between September 2024 and June 2025 as the superintendent and responsible pharmacist of Berkeley Court Pharmacy in London.

Hamed has been the sole director of Bloom Healthcare Ltd (BHL), which has owned and operated the pharmacy since October 2023, for the last six years. Neither Berkeley Court Pharmacy or BHL hold a WDA allowing them to sell or supply medicines to a person other than a patient using those medicines.

Xanax (alprazolam) is a class C controlled drug which is not available on the NHS but is licensed for private prescription in the UK.

The committee heard suspicions were raised in May 2025 when the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) “received information suggesting BHL had purchased unusually high quantities of Xanax”. That prompted GPhC inspector Sharon Spearing to conduct an unannounced inspection of the pharmacy on June 24, 2025. Hamed was not present during the inspection but Spearing spoke to him over the phone.

Giving evidence to the hearing, Spearing said when she asked Hamed about the pharmacy’s use of Xanax, he “did not provide any explanation for the unusual purchasing pattern of Xanax” but “acknowledged” it could not be prescribed on the NHS and insisted “the pharmacy did not often supply Xanax against private prescriptions to his knowledge”.

Spearing then searched the pharmacy and found seven complete packs and one split pack of Xanax and after checking the pharmacy’s prescription record, found no private prescriptions for the drug in the period dating back to August 1, 2024.

None had been supplied legitimately by the pharmacy

The next day, June 25, 2025, another 88 boxes of Xanax were found in the pharmacy on a shelf behind other medicines. Spearing questioned Hamed about that on the phone on June 30 and he admitted he was responsible for ordering and overseeing stock medicines.

Spearing said she asked Hamed if he “could account for the discrepancy between (approximately 160 packs) ordered by the pharmacy and the exiting amount in stock as records indicated that none had been supplied legitimately by the pharmacy”.

She said he claimed “some stock may have been damaged by water or rats” and when she asked why he continued to order Xanax tablets “when there was no legitimate use for them”, he said he was “stockpiling them with the intention of supplying them to an overseas charity which supported refugees”.

Hamed insisted he had a letter to confirm that and told Spearing he “thought he may be able to wholesale under his pharmacy licence”. Spearing said she told him that was not allowed and advised him to “quarantine existing stock, cease ordering Xanax and inform his insurers as this was a serious matter”.

Following the inspection, conditions were imposed on Berkeley Court Pharmacy on July 4, 2025, prohibiting it from obtaining, selling or supplying medicines containing alprazolam.

However, the GPhC then discovered that 1,177 packs of Xanax 500mcg tablets were delivered to the pharmacy from three different pharmaceutical wholesalers from September 2024. Taking away the 95 packs previously found at the pharmacy, the committee heard it left 1,082 packs unaccounted for. With 60 tablets in each pack, that totalled 64,920 tablets.

Supplied Xanax to international charitable organisations

After the GPhC informed Hamed on July 23, 2025, that an investigation had been opened into “concerns he had failed to ensure there was proper oversight and management by the pharmacy in relation to Xanax”, his legal representative responded the following month to say Hamed did not supply Xanax on prescription but provided it to international charitable organisations.

The legal representative provided letters from those organisations “confirming requests had been made” to Hamed “for the supply of medication”. Those organisations were named as The Wellplus Medicals of Lagos, Nigeria; the Embassy of the Republic of The Sudan in London; Tyre human assembly (sic) of Tyre (country not stated); Bedaya Charity Organization of Giza, Egypt; and Noralataa (country not identified).

The legal representative said Hamed was “informed over the phone who, on behalf of the charities, would be coming to the pharmacy to collect the medicine” and he “would check their identity and hand over whatever stock he had of the medication” when they arrived.

The committee was also told there were letters “from three individuals who said they had introduced” Hamed “to one or more of these organisations”, praising his “compassion and support of charitable and humanitarian causes”.

However, none of the letters provided the correspondent’s physical address, although one, from a “Ms G”, included an email address. The GPhC tried to contact the organisations having found email addresses on the internet. It “received an acknowledgement of receipt” from The Wellplus Medicals “but no substantive response” to its enquiries and no replies from the other organisations despite chasing it up.

‘Ms G’ told the GPhC in September 2025 that she gave Hamed’s contact details to Tyre human assembly “because she knew of (his) charitable character”.

A strong moral and emotional obligation to assist

In his defence, Hamed said he “had worked diligently to enhance the range and quality” of his pharmacy’s services since he bought it in 2023 and had “strived to help various charities through his business venture”.

He said he felt “a strong moral and emotional obligation to assist” because he had “personally experienced conflict and humanitarian suffering”. Hamed also insisted he “took care to confirm” the “status” of all the organisations before engaging with them and did not deny that he supplied Xanax.

“The requests for medicines were from individuals who represented the organisations requesting support and were made by voice calls through encrypted messaging platforms,” the committee noted.

In his statement, Hamed said he “only handed over medicines after carrying out an identification check to match the person’s name and date of birth to the information he had been provided with”. He also insisted he “checked by voice call that medicines had reached their intended destination” and “received confirmation from the charities that the supplies had arrived and had been handled by their medical teams”.

However, Hamed admitted he did not keep any records in relation to the supplies and assumed he did not need a wholesale licence because he was not selling Xanax for a profit.

“He now accepts this was a misunderstanding,” the committee said in its report. “When he was told he could not operate in this way, he was shocked (and) has now stopped making any supplies to these charities.”

His interpretation of wholesale dealing was incorrect

The committee said Hamed had realised that “his interpretation of wholesale dealing was incorrect, and that he could not ‘wholesale’ any medication without a licence, no matter how small the amount”.

The committee also said he provided it with a reflective statement, “engaged in reflection, sought professional mentoring and taken steps to change the way he approaches charitable work”.

The committee noted the GPhC was not alleging that Hamed had acted dishonestly or with a lack of integrity and took into account that he had accepted his conduct “in this case amounted to misconduct”.

However, the committee concluded his fitness to practise was impaired on public protection grounds and insisted “there was no doubt in the committee's mind that his actions put members of the public at risk”.

“The facts of this case demonstrate a cavalier attitude towards record-keeping, professional inquisitiveness and management of controlled drugs,” the committee said, referring to an improvement notice the pharmacy was given in 2024 for “poor record-keeping concerning controlled drugs”.

Although the pharmacy addressed this seven months later, the committee noted, Hamed had failed to learn from that when supplying controlled drugs.

And even though he admitted and apologised for his misconduct, showed remorse, fully engaged with the disciplinary process and provided the committee with testimonials “which spoke positively of his personal and professional attributes”, the committee felt there remained “a potential risk to patients and the public”.

It said a review of his suspension will take place before the six months are up.