Brian Meshkin

Brian Meshkin is an entrepreneur who founded the genetic testing companies Salugen and Proove Biosciences.

Surfbuzz.com

In November 1999, Meshkin co-founded Internet incentives company Surfbuzz.com with his brother, Alex Meshkin.[1] Surfbuzz folded the following year after spending between $3 million and $4 million in seed money.[2][3][4]

Salugen, Inc.

Salugen, Inc., incorporated in April 2005,[5] sold dietary supplements and direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests — a relatively new business model that was lightly regulated at that time.[6] In June 2008, the California Department of Public Health issued cease-and-desist notices to 13 genetics companies, including Salugen, for improper marketing of DTC tests.[7][8][9] Salugen was ordered not to test Californians until it was licensed as a clinical laboratory in California, and to perform only validated tests ordered by a licensed physician.[7] On September 10, 2008, Salugen executives other than CEO Meshkin resigned, citing the firm's inability "to raise capital, adequately perform operational activities or compensate employees and vendors" under his direction.[10] Soon afterwards Salugen was acquired by Sherbrooke Equity A.G. Despite raising further capital on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Salugen was wound up the following year.

Proove Biosciences

Meshkin founded Proove Biosciences in December 2009.[1] Proove Biosciences began marketing a test called the "Proove Opioid Risk test" (POR) which it claimed could predict with high accuracy which patients would become addicted to or misuse prescribed opioid pain pills. Other Proove products included Proove Pain Perception, Proove Opioid Response, and Proove Drug Metabolism.[11]

Proove Bioscience's business model involved practices that appeared to generate potential conflicts of interest. Proove Biosciences was running research programs out of hospital clinics. In fact, more than 90% of patients tested were enrolled on clinical studies administered by Proove.[11] Proove offered a payment to clinicians for each patient recruited to these studies. This arrangement could have given clinicians a financial incentive to enroll patients to research program, and thereby enrich Proove Biosciences by allowing insurance reimbursement for those patients.[12][13] Further concerns were raised when scientists and clinicians expressed reservations about the quality of the evidence supporting the POR.[11][13][14][15] Former employees said that Meshkin, who has no background in science, asserted control over the company's research program: "It was marketing. It wasn’t science."[13]

In May 2017, a whistleblower lawsuit filed against Proove Biosciences in 2015 by Bruce Gardner, a former employee, was unsealed.[16] The complaint alleges that Proove submitted false claims to Medicare in violation of the False Claims Act and federal Anti-Kickback Statute. The suit asserts that Proove billed for medically unnecessary genetic tests and engaged in a sophisticated kickback scheme with physicians.[16]

On June 7, 2017, the FBI raided the offices of Proove Biosciences in Irvine, CA, in relation to an investigation of health care fraud.[17] On August 7, 2017, Proove Biosciences was placed into court-ordered receivership. On August 31, 2017, it was reported that Meshkin was no longer CEO at Proove Biosciences.[18] On August 4, 2020, the former Vice President of Market Development for Proove, Donald Joseph Matthews, pled guilty in federal court to conspiring to pay physicians kickbacks to order genetic tests for Medicare beneficiaries in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute.[19]

gollark: _is chicken-poor_
gollark: Or just ask for another chicken. People with chickens seem to really like aeons.
gollark: I have an aeon around. I could possibly accept offers for it.
gollark: Fish gave me my first copper. It's my only CB green, as well.
gollark: Pygmy eggs seem to come in groups.

References
  1. "Brain Meshkin". LinkedIn. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  2. "Wipeout! Surfbuzz Goes Under". Wired. June 6, 2000. Retrieved June 23, 2018. If ever a startup embraced the whole make-a-fast-buck, dot-com ethos, it was Surfbuzz.com, an auction site that awarded expensive prizes to its customers. The only buzzing to be heard now is from the flies swarming over the corpse of Surfbuzz, which said Tuesday that it is going out of business.
  3. Walker, Leslie (November 25, 1999). "Brothers With a Selling Point". Washington Post. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  4. Dean, Katie (October 26, 1999). "Teen trades education for e-biz". Wired. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  5. "The Story Of Salugen". Salugen. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  6. Kaye, Jane (2008). "The Regulation of Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Tests". Hum Mol Genet. 17 (R2): R180–R183. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddn253. PMC 2672785. PMID 18852208.
  7. "Genetic Test Cease-And-Desist Notices". California Department of Public Health. June 24, 2008. Archived from the original on July 2, 2008. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  8. Johnson, Steve (June 24, 2008). "Five California gene testing firms among 13 suspended". Mercury News. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  9. "Big Genetics Company Conducted Needless, Inaccurate Tests, Employees Say - KQED Future of You". KQED. February 1, 2017. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  10. "The Salugen Story Reconstructed". Tales of Two Cities. September 2, 2012. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  11. Gusovsky, Dina (May 6, 2016). "A medical test that aims to wean America off painkillers". CNBC. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  12. Daley, Beth (October 3, 2015). "Genetic tests for psychiatric drugs spur hope, doubts: Business unregulated and science often thin, critics say". Boston Globe. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
  13. Piller, Charles (February 28, 2017). "It's easy money: Lab offers doctors up to $144,000 a year to push dubious genetic tests, employees say". STAT. Retrieved June 24, 2018.
  14. Piller, Charles (December 13, 2016). "Called 'hogwash,' a gene test for addiction risk exploits opioid fears". STAT. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  15. Siegel, Zachary (October 16, 2016). "Can a DNA Test Really Predict Opiate Addiction?". The Daily Beast. Retrieved June 26, 2018.
  16. "Mintz Levin Health Care Qui Tam Update - Recently Unsealed Whistleblower Cases: August 2017". JDSupra. August 7, 2017. Retrieved July 15, 2018. The relator alleges that Proove engaged in fraudulent billing practices in connection with a series of genetic tests designed to determine patients’ susceptibility to opioid addiction based on their genetic profiles... The complaint alleges that Proove’s genetic tests are unsupported by medical evidence, and the defendant billed Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary tests using billing codes that were inapplicable to the genetic tests it was actually performing but which generated higher reimbursements. In addition, the complaint asserts that the defendant improperly induced physicians to sign a Professional Services Agreement to sell and administer Proove’s tests to patients in exchange for a fee from Proove and reimbursement from Medicare. The relator alleges that this complicated kickback scheme resulted in Medicare’s payment of millions of dollars for unnecessary and expensive testing.
  17. Piller, Charles (June 8, 2017). "FBI raids offices of lab that pays doctors to promote genetic tests". STAT. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  18. Piller, Charles (August 31, 2017). "Proove Biosciences, which sold dubious DNA tests to predict addiction risk, sells off assets as CEO departs amid criminal probe". STAT. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  19. "VP of Genetics Company Pleads Guilty to Paying Physicians Sham Clinical Research Fees as Part of $21 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme". www.justice.gov. August 4, 2020. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
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