Alternate Sources

Charlie Thomas, a lover of jazz and jazz musicians, and nicknamed “Ms. Black Corporate America” by her best friend, is the director of purchasing for a mid-size pharmaceutical distributor. She purchases pharmaceuticals from manufacturers for three of the company’s four facilities. The lone standout, and most profitable facility is run by Stanley Forsythe, Charlie’s egotistical nemesis with entitlement issues who trades with alternate source vendors in the high-risk grey market. The owner of the company looks the other way because Stanley’s distribution center is more profitable than the other three combined.

Charlie refuses to “pollute the supply chain” with Stanley’s suspect product and trading partners, but when the company is acquired by one of the big three wholesalers, she is relocated to Stanley’s “criminal enterprise” and the more she learns about Stanley’s business operations, the more she suspects that his transactions aren’t just unethical but illegal. The fight for product integrity and patient safety versus corporate profit and individual greed reaches well beyond Charlie and Stanley’s epic battles. The FDA, FBI and State Attorneys General try to contain or eliminate the flow of counterfeit and adulterated drugs, in an effort to secure the supply chain and prosecute the dirty players involved. As multiple investigations by Federal agencies and the state of California circle Stanley and his cohorts, Charlie may be the key to taking him down.