A Department of Justice press release issued Friday announced the conviction of a medical technology company executive for submitting $77 million in false testing claims.
Mark Schena, of California, as president of Arrayit Corp., duped investors “by claiming that he had invented revolutionary technology to test for virtually any disease using only a few drops of blood,” according to the announcement. Schena reportedly went as far as falsely claiming he was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize.
Other misrepresentations revealed at trial, according to the Department of Justice, include a failure to produce required financial disclosures, concealing the fact that the company was close to bankruptcy.
Beyond investor relations, the Department of Justice also revealed that Schena submitted claims for medically unnecessary allergy testing and paid kickbacks to marketers. When the allergy testing business declined thanks to the pandemic, prosecutors say that Schena pivoted to testing for COVID-19. He reportedly announced that the company had a superior COVID-19 test, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s refusal to grant a use authorization for Arrayit’s product.
Schena also reportedly claimed that the government mandated that patients undergo allergy testing alongside COVID-19 testing.
The former executive is set to be sentenced early next year, and could face decades in prison for healthcare and securities fraud, prosecutors say.
