FBI Investigates uBiome for Financial Misconduct

Federal agents searched the offices of the personal microbiome testing company in San Francisco on April 26 following allegations of improperly billing health insurers.

Written byChia-Yi Hou
| 1 min read
ubiome San Francisco startup biotech fbi investigation

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
1:00
Share

ABOVE: uBiome is headquartered in San Francisco
© ISTOCK.COM MUDDYMARI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into biotech startup uBiome for miscoding financial compensation to doctors prescribing their products and over-billing health insurance companies for its home testing kits for human gut and vaginal microbiomes, reports STAT.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) showed up on April 26 at the startup’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, for “court-authorized law enforcement activity,” an FBI spokesperson writes in a statement to CNBC. Some employees of the company were told to stay home from work on Friday, a person familiar with the matter tells CNBC. A uBiome spokesperson tells The Wall Street Journal, “We are cooperating fully with federal authorities on this matter.”

In recent months, three people say to CNBCthat uBiome has repeatedly charged patients’ insurance plans twice for the same test. The health insurance company Anthem has flagged uBiome ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here
Image of a woman with her hands across her stomach. She has a look of discomfort on her face. There is a blown up image of her stomach next to her and it has colorful butterflies and gut bacteria all swarming within the gut.
November 2025, Issue 1

Why Do We Feel Butterflies in the Stomach?

These fluttering sensations are the brain’s reaction to certain emotions, which can be amplified or soothed by the gut’s own “bugs".

View this Issue
Olga Anczukow and Ryan Englander discuss how transcriptome splicing affects immune system function in lung cancer.

Long-Read RNA Sequencing Reveals a Regulatory Role for Splicing in Immunotherapy Responses

Pacific Biosciences logo
Research Roundtable: The Evolving World of Spatial Biology

Research Roundtable: The Evolving World of Spatial Biology

Conceptual cartoon image of gene editing technology

Exploring the State of the Art in Gene Editing Techniques

Bio-Rad
Conceptual image of a doctor holding a brain puzzle, representing Alzheimer's disease diagnosis.

Simplifying Early Alzheimer’s Disease Diagnosis with Blood Testing

fujirebio logo

Products

Eppendorf Logo

Research on rewiring neural circuit in fruit flies wins 2025 Eppendorf & Science Prize

Evident Logo

EVIDENT's New FLUOVIEW FV5000 Redefines the Boundaries of Confocal and Multiphoton Imaging

Evident Logo

EVIDENT Launches Sixth Annual Image of the Year Contest

10x Genomics Logo

10x Genomics Launches the Next Generation of Chromium Flex to Empower Scientists to Massively Scale Single Cell Research