{"id":584105,"date":"2026-07-13T22:16:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/584105\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T22:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T22:16:16","slug":"irish-cancer-patients-paid-up-to-e50000-for-unauthorised-treatments-advertised-on-social-media-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/584105\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish cancer patients paid up to \u20ac50,000 for unauthorised treatments advertised on social media \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten Irish cancer<\/a> sufferers paid between \u20ac30,000 to \u20ac50,000 for unauthorised treatments from Lithuania<\/a>, advertised on Facebook<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>, a court has heard.<\/p>\n

Healthcare firm Innovita Life Ltd and its directors, Brendan Murphy and Adas Darinskas, entered guilty pleas via their lawyers at Dublin District Court<\/a> on Monday to unlawfully providing advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs).<\/p>\n

Murphy and Darinskas are to be spared possible 12-month jail sentences and criminal records in Ireland after Judge Anthony Halpin ordered them to each pay \u20ac4,000 toward prosecution costs and both to donate \u20ac1,000 to charity.<\/p>\n

He recorded convictions against the company, which was fined \u20ac6,000 and also ordered to contribute \u20ac4,000 in costs.<\/p>\n

The prosecution follows an investigation by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), Ireland\u2019s medicinal watchdog.<\/p>\n

Guilty pleas were entered to charges under the Irish Medicines Board Act covering unauthorised advertising and supplying medicine and failing to keep records for the expensive treatments.<\/p>\n

Darinskas, who is an immunologist and not a doctor as required under Irish law, faced a charge for prescribing medicine without authorisation.<\/p>\n

HPRA solicitor Ronan O\u2019Neill told the judge Halpin that ATMPs involved taking blood from a patient to undergo a process that requires a licence for activities such as supplying medicines that require a prescription and authorisation for advertising such products.<\/p>\n

Asked by the judge about the benefit of this, O\u2019Neill explained that it can sometimes, in addition to conventional medicine, be of benefit. <\/p>\n

The judge heard it involved rejuvenation of the blood to create antigens that can help in certain treatments.<\/p>\n

HPRA enforcement officer Alan Smullen gave evidence that in 2023, the authority became aware of the website, innovita.com, which was offering cell treatments for cancer. <\/p>\n

The website was offering the service to Irish patients through Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n

The HPRA identified that Innovita Life Ltd had a registered address at Merrion Square in Dublin 2. <\/p>\n

Smullen said the authority visited that address in October 2024 and established that it was merely a service office with a brass plaque for receiving post and communications on the company\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

Innovita Life provided details about its services and the number of patients, and Brendan Murphy, then a director, also provided some information.<\/p>\n

Murphy (65), from Dublin, now has an address at Crane Lodge Place, Palm Beach, Sydney, Australia, where he has lived since the 1980s. The court heard that he gave the authority more details on the Irish patients treated. <\/p>\n

He had an address in Spain when the company was set up in 2022.<\/p>\n

Neither director attended, but Murphy had a legal team in court to represent him, and the HPRA was provided with a letter from the lawyer for Darinskas, of Vytauto 48, Vilnius, Lithuania, and the company indicating they were pleading guilty.<\/p>\n

The court heard the investigation uncovered several other patients.<\/p>\n

Smullen said there were certain licenses for making, providing, advertising and supplying ATMPs, as well as for the storage of blood and tissues. <\/p>\n

The enforcement officer said that part of the case against the firm concerned the accountability and traceability of documents.<\/p>\n

The court heard the cost of each treatment ranged from \u20ac30,000 to \u20ac50,000. <\/p>\n

Murphy has since resigned and the company remains listed as active with the Companies Registration Office pending the outcome of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Smullen said that the company in Lithuania was licensed to carry out these activities there, but the HPRA\u2019s approval was required to conduct any of these activities in Ireland.<\/p>\n

He agreed with counsel for Murphy, Alison Fynes, that he was co-operative and attended the meeting with him. <\/p>\n

He engaged in a second interview remotely and explained that the treatments were in addition to, as opposed to, traditional treatments, the court heard.<\/p>\n

The HPRA officer agreed with counsel that the treatments were not the problem but rather the lack of compliance with the regulations.<\/p>\n

The court heard that efforts are being made to wind up the company\u2019s Irish operation, and Murphy indicated that no one was harmed from the treatments, which the HPRA accepted. <\/p>\n

In all, 10 Irish patients received the treatment, the court heard.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Neill said that while Darinskas was a licensed immunologist in Lithuania, the law required him to be a qualified medical doctor in Ireland to perform the treatments here. <\/p>\n

Fynes asked that her client be given credit for his guilty pleas, with the judge agreeing that it spared a lengthy trial of up to three days.<\/p>\n

Pleading for leniency, counsel stressed that it was a matter of regulation, not an issue with the treatments themselves, and that it was unlikely he would come before the court again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten Irish cancer sufferers paid between \u20ac30,000 to \u20ac50,000 for unauthorised treatments from Lithuania, advertised on Facebook and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,110,19715,18,877,13,14,6,70825,19,876,17,11,12,7253,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-584105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-cancer","tag-district-court","tag-eire","tag-facebook","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-health-products-regulatory-authority-hpra","tag-ie","tag-instagram","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-lithuania","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116914984422353682","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}