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Greed-to-Grief, No. 17

Greed-to-Grief, No. 17

From Ph.D. to prison

George Pillari
August 21, 2025

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Mark Schena was into science. He received his undergraduate degree and then studied six more years to earn his Ph.D. in biochemistry. After becoming a full-fledged doctor of biochemistry, he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford for ten years.

As a post-doc, Schena continued his research without worrying about building a record as a tenure-track faculty member. He was a full-time researcher.

Biochemist turned crook, Mark Schena

Schena published five books on complex topics in biochemistry. Biochemistry is the study of how proteins, DNA, sugars, and other “biomolecules” interact with each other and with the body’s metabolism. Pretty deep stuff.

While at Stanford, Schena published a research paper on DNA testing that was the basis for over 40,000 additional studies of the subject. He was featured on the television show Nova as a scientist who was cracking the code of how living beings actually work. Schena was the real deal.

Like many in academia, Schena could not resist the attraction of the private sector and the paydays that came with it. As a post doc, Schena made something like $100,000 per year and was supposed to be content with creating new knowledge and improving the world. As a co-founder of hot biotech startup, Schena could earn millions.

Schena co-founded Arrayit in 1999 and it plodded along for several years providing important but obscure testing services to pharmaceutical and biotech companies that were seeking to prove their new drugs would be effective at treating disease.

An Arrayit testing it

Schena grew impatient with the lack of progress (and riches) from Arrayit, so he went on the road and touted a new test from the company that could test for just about every disease from a single finger prick of blood.

These claims were eerily similar to those made by former whiz kid Elizabeth Holmes and her testing company Theranos. Theranos was exposed as a complete fraud and Holmes is currently serving 11 years in prison. In an odd note to all of this, Schena lived down the block from the Theranos headquarters in Silicon Valley.

Schena went on to claim he was on the short list for the Nobel Prize and Arrayit was worth almost $5 billion. Both claims were untrue.

Schena’s big break was the COVID-19 pandemic. Now his company was in the vaccine business and had a solution for COVID. His test never received proper government approvals, but that did not stop Schena from selling tens of millions of dollars of it to the elderly and disabled and billing the federal government through Medicare.

One year, Arrayit billed the Medicare program more per test than any other lab in the country. And almost all the tests were medically unnecessary or involved unapproved testing kits.

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Schena was relentless in his promotion of Arrayit.

He boasted of exciting deals with companies and government agencies while recording falsified videos of the company’s labs looking busy. The exciting deals were fabrications and the labs were not busy.

Schena also paid marketing agents to acquire blood samples from patients. There are strict healthcare laws about “kicking back” dollars to referral sources. It’s a huge no-no and often prosecuted.

All of this in an effort to boost Arrayit’s stock price. Well, the stock price did shoot up, from $0.02 per share to $0.04. Hardly the bonanza Schena was trying to score.

Of the $77 million that Arrayit charged the Medicare program over three years, only $2.7 million was reimbursed.

According to the news release from the federal indictment:

A Silicon Valley executive exploited the pandemic for profit, ultimately endangering patients with unproven COVID-19 tests.

Schena was convicted of nine different counts of fraud and paying kickbacks. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $24 million in restitution.

What a guy.

Key Takeaways

Some people never have enough. Schena was a brilliant and respected scientist. The lure of money makes people do strange things. Schena left Stanford at the height of the Internet boom and Stanford was the epicenter of it all. So many people making so much money, you can almost see how Schena was sucked into it.
Where were Schena’s board members, lawyers, or advisors? You cannot pull off a scam this big without help. Were they in the dark or complicit? Surround yourself with people who will stand up to you.
The brazen claims and outright falsehoods broadcast by Schena indicate how desperate he was. By putting the lives of Medicare patients on the line with unproven tests, he could have also been charged with murder. No wonder his prison sentence was harsh.

Things I think about

The Golden Gate Bridge swings as much as 27 feet side-to-side in heavy winds.