Biology Digest

  Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte, the cofounders of the now shuttered microbiome company uBiome, are facing criminal and civil charges stemming from their efforts to build uBiome into a poop-testing powerhouse. The Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Richman and Apte defrauded investors out of $60 million by giving a false impression of how well the company was doing. The married cofounders are also facing criminal charges in federal court in California. They were indicted on Thursday on charges including healthcare fraud and wire fraud, as well as related conspiracy charges. The SEC complaint alleged Richman, 46, and Apte, 36, portrayed uBiome as receiving health-insurance reimbursements for its tests, which tested poop samples for different conditions related to gut health. The complaint alleged the cofounders made millions as uBiome raised money from investors. "We allege that Richman and Apte touted uBiome as a successful and fast-growing biotech pioneer while hi

  (Reuters) - On a chilly spring morning in 2019, Amrit Mula arrived in her office at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co’s factory in Branchburg, New Jersey, to find a desk drawer open that she had kept locked. Her files were missing. Mula was a top human resources officer at what was one of America’s largest biotech plants. Over the years, she had been investigating employee complaints about manufacturing problems related to multiple drugs, including the company’s blockbuster diabetes medication, Trulicity, according to internal company documents and email correspondence reviewed by Reuters. Among the most serious allegations: Records had been falsified or destroyed in the wake of manufacturing mistakes. In one case, according to 2018 emails among executives, company-mandated quality assurance documents were missing for Trulicity, which security filings show garnered more than $4 billion in sales in 2019. Shortly after Mula discovered her files missing that day, her boss told her t