BOSTON – The pharmacy linked to the nation's deadly outbreak of meningitis is owned by two brothers-in-law who brought different but complementary skills to the venture: One's a pharmacist, the other a risk-taking businessman who made his mark recycling old computers, fishing rope and mattresses.

Now the New England Compounding Center and its practices are under scrutiny as investigators try to determine how a steroid solution supplied by the pharmacy apparently became contaminated with a fungus. The drug has sickened nearly 200 people in 12 states, killing 15. Most of the patients had received spinal injections of the steroid for back pain.

NECC was founded in 1998 by Barry Cadden and Gregory Conigliaro as a compounding pharmacy, a laboratory that custom-mixes solution, creams and other medicines in dosages and forms that often are unavailable from pharmaceutical companies.