Health

California Biotech CEO Convicted in $77 Million Blood Test Program


A California biotech executive was convicted on Thursday of orchestrating a $77 million scheme involving false and fraudulent claims, federal prosecutors said. fraud for allergy testing and Covid-19, federal prosecutors said.

The CEO, Mark Schena, 59, served as president of Arrayit Corporation, a biomedical company that claims to have invented the technology to test for any disease with just a drop of fingertip blood. According to the Arrayit website, its “microarray” technology can check for ovarian cancer, Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer and male fertility, among other diseases and conditions.

Mr. Schena was found guilty of a total of nine federal counts, including conspiracy to commit a health care act, telephone and healthcare fraud, and three counts of securities fraud. He faces 20 years in prison for health care fraud conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy, as well as 20 years for securities fraud each.

Beginning in 2018, Mr. Schena returned money and bribed employers and doctors to perform allergy testing for 120 different allergens, including wasp stings, shrimp, peanuts, dairy and Bermuda grass, regardless of medical need, federal prosecutors said.

The US Department of Justice said he then developed “a deceptive marketing scheme” to falsely promote the accuracy of the test “when in reality it is not a diagnostic test”. .

According to the department, Mr. Schena filed a fraud complaint with Medicare and private insurance to do unnecessary allergy testing. The company charges more per patient who comes to Medicare for blood-based allergy testing than any other lab in the United States, the Justice Department said. Some commercial insurers have been billed more than $10,000 per check.

When Arrayit’s allergy testing business was established during the coronavirus pandemic, the company turned to Covid-19 testing and claimed to have developed a blood-based test that uses its purported technology. .

When Arrayit falsely claimed that its Covid test was more accurate than the PCR test, the US Food and Drug Administration informed Mr. Schena that the Arrayit test was not accurate enough to receive an emergency use authorization. grant. Mr. Schena hid that denial from investors.

Mr. Schena described himself to investors as the “father of microarray technology,” and falsely claimed he was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, the Justice Department said.

A phone number listed for the company was disconnected. Mr. Schena’s attorney, Todd A. Pickles, declined to comment on Friday.

Arrayit compares itself to Theranos, the failed blood-testing startup that, at least once on its Facebook page, writes that its technology can use blood droplets “250,000 times smaller than the volume.” of Theranos nanotainer”, according to the Department of Justice Initial Complaint in 2020.

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, who once promised to revolutionize healthcare through a simple blood test, and Ramesh Balwani, the company’s former senior executive, were accused of exaggerating the possibilities. performance of their blood-testing machines to attract investors and customers.

In January, Ms. Holmes was found guilty of four counts of fraud, and in July, Mr. Balwani was found guilty of 12 counts of fraud.



Source link

news7f

News7F: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button