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WALNUT CREEK – A Walnut Creek pharmacist will be forced to surrender his license at the end of the month, after his business mixed a batch of medicine linked to an outbreak of illness and three meningitis deaths in June. 

Robert Horwitz, 62, a pharmacist for at least 35 years, must also give up his permit for Doc’s Pharmacy, although he sold the business in November. 

Horwitz was well-known for mixing custom medications, a practice known as “compounding.” 

But an Alameda County administrative law judge had found that poor sterilization techniques and other substandard practices during compounding led to a tainted batch of injectable steroid. 

Up to 38 people received the contaminated cortisone shots, and of those, 13 were hospitalized following the injections. Five of those people contracted meningitis and three later died. 

The state’s decision to revoke Horwitz’s license supported the judge’s finding. 

Horwitz’s former partner, Jamey Sheets, and two pharmacy technicians will receive 90-day suspensions and five-year probations. 

Sheets also must go through remedial education and, under the terms of his probation, is prohibited from mixing injectable medications. 

The state said Horwitz did not supervise the technicians who prepared the batch of shots. 

Family members of those who died after receiving the shots, as well as some who received the injections, have filed 15 separate lawsuits.