Mark Schena, the former president of Arrayit Corporation, a Silicon Valley-based medical technology company, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution after his September 2022 convictions for health care fraud, securities fraud, paying kickbacks, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Schena’s case was the first criminal COVID-19 health care fraud case to go to trial.

Schena — who deemed himself the “father of microarray technology” — told Arrayit’s investors that he invented a revolutionary technology to test for any disease through the use of a single drop of blood from a finger stick sample. Schena further defrauded Arrayit’s investors by representing that Arrayit could be valued at $4.5 billion, even though it was on the verge of bankruptcy. Schena issued false public statements that Arrayit had lucrative partnerships with public institutions, companies, and government agencies, and filmed videos that falsely depicted Arrayit’s laboratory as high-tech and busy.

In addition, Schena oversaw an illegal kickback and health care fraud scheme that resulted in the submission of over $77 million in claims for COVID-19 and allergy testing. Schena paid kickbacks to marketers to obtain patient blood specimens, and then ran allergy testing for 120 different allergens regardless of medical necessity, even though Arrayit’s test was not a diagnostic test.  

Schena also falsely announced that Arrayit had developed a COVID-19 test, even though the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had informed him that the Arrayit’s test was not accurate enough to receive an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), which he concealed from investors. 

Read the US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) press release here.