Surgisphere

Sapan Desai has inactivated his license in Illinois, where multiple malpractice lawsuits against him are pending, and obtained a new one in Ohio.

Illinois-based Surgisphere Corporation had a brief moment in the limelight this year following its infamous study of hydroxychloroquine. But the impact of the company’s deception reverberated across world.

The high-profile retractions of two COVID-19 studies stunned the scientific community earlier this year and prompted calls for reviews of how science is conducted, published, and acted upon. The warning signs had been there all along.

The changes, which affect the declarations authors have to sign and the peer-review process, have received a mixed response from the scientific community.

The company behind a now-discredited study on hydroxychloroquine also posted a report that has been cited by Latin American governments recommending ivermectin as a possible coronavirus treatment. Clinicians there say the effects have been extremely damaging.

The company had helped develop a tool to aid decision-making in distributing limited medical equipment among coronavirus patients, but two high-profile retractions call into question the validity of Surgisphere’s work in toto.

All authors other than company founder and CEO Sapan Desai were “unable to complete an independent audit of the data,” The Lancet states.

NEJM and The Lancet issue expressions of concern as researchers question where the company got its data on thousands of coronavirus patients.

Scientists have raised questions about the dataset published in The Lancet last week that triggered the suspension of clinical trials around the world—and about Surgisphere Corporation, the company behind the study.

A paper published in The Lancet reported that hospitalized COVID-19 patients taking the drug had a higher risk of death, although some researchers have raised questions about the data.