- Business
- Arrayit Corporation, formerly a life sciences technology firm, developed, manufactured, and distributed specialized tools and integrated platforms globally for analyzing genetic variation, biological function, and diagnostics. The company's offerings historically encompassed a comprehensive suite of microarray instruments, including the NanoPrint, SpotBot Titan, SpotBot Extreme, SpotBot Protein, and Personal microarrayers, alongside an array of scanners such as SpotLight CCD fluorescence, SpotWare colorimetric, and InnoScan laser models. Additionally, Arrayit provided various laboratory equipment, including TrayMix and ArrayMix hybridization stations, centrifuges, air jets, vacuum products, and bioinformatics computers. Its core product lines featured advanced microarray printing technology enabling the creation of DNA, protein, antibody, lipid, and carbohydrate microarrays for research and diagnostic applications like gene expression, genotyping, and protein profiling. They also offered custom printing and analysis services for research purposes and focused on developing diagnostic microarrays for early disease detection. The firm supplied a range of consumables, including specialized glass substrates, slides, reagents, solutions, kits, and clean room supplies. Their purported variation identification platform technology was designed to process a substantial number of patient samples on a single microarray for diagnostic testing. Historically, Arrayit aimed to serve genomic research centers, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, clinical research organizations, government agencies, and biotechnology firms from its base in Sunnyvale, California. However, the company's operational integrity has been significantly undermined by extensive legal challenges. In September 2022, Mark Schena, the president of Arrayit Corporation, was convicted by a federal jury on multiple counts of healthcare fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and illegal kickbacks, stemming from a scheme involving $77 million in false claims related to allergy and COVID-19 testing. Schena was subsequently sentenced to eight years in federal prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution for defrauding investors and running a scheme involving medically unnecessary allergy tests and misleading claims about COVID-19 diagnostics. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had previously charged Arrayit Corporation and co-founder and CEO Rene Schena in February 2021 for making false statements regarding a COVID-19 test and failing to file mandatory financial reports. The SEC also suspended trading in Arrayit's securities in April 2020 due to concerns over the accuracy of its public financial information and claims about its COVID-19 test. These developments have cast a profound shadow on the company's past business practices and its present operational viability.