that resulted in several hospitalizations in 2003.

So far, no lawsuits have been filed against Fabre in the case. But even if Fabre loses his testing credentials, it may not affect him all that much. For several years now he has been developing another side of his business in an attempt to make the transition from drug testing to drug manufacturing.

Two months after Zhirakarov's death California-based Questcor Pharmaceuticals announced its agreement with Fabre-Kramer Pharmaceuticals -- Fabre's partnership with Stephen Kramer, a local IRB member and fellow life member of the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians -- to develop and "commercialize" Hypnostat and Panistat, two drugs developed by Fabre-Kramer now in the early clinical trial stages.

Questcor received $250,000 up front in the deal and rights to half of all futurerevenues. But drug development is a fickle endeavor. Take, for instance, another promising drug F-K got involved with. Ariza was going to cut into Prozac's turf as a new treatment for major depressive disorders. Initial European market reports projected the new pill would be raking in as much as $360 million by 2010. However, the drug bombed when the FDA found it ultimately "not approvable." It's now being looked at by the National Institute on Drug Abuse for a less glamorous purpose: as a potential treatment for cocaine addicts.

Before Garry Polsgrove was Vladimir Yuri Zhirakarov, before he ever introduced himself as Paul Schroeder or Paul Steiner or Ernest J. Kowalski, he was a little boy growing up picking cotton in a speck of a town called Campbell, Missouri.