Under federal district court orders announced Wednesday, the co-founders of the Stem Cell Institute of America and several related companies are banned from marketing stem cell therapy in the future.
The order resolves a complaint filed jointly by the Federal Trade Commission and Georgia Attorney General’s Office. A separate order requires the defendants to pay $5,155,146 in civil penalties and refunds to defrauded consumers on Georgia’s state law claims.
“The founders of the Stem Cell Institute of America and their network of companies tricked people who needed real medical help into buying expensive, unproven stem cell therapy,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The court’s orders hold them accountable, refund consumers, and permanently ban the defendants from offering stem cell therapy and other regenerative medicine treatment in the future.”
The agencies’ 2021 complaint named Steven D. Peyroux and Brent J. Detelich; Regenerative Medicine Institute of America, LLC, doing business as Stem Cell Institute of America, LLC (SCIA); Physicians Business Solutions, LLC (PBS); and Superior Healthcare, LLC (SHC) as defendants.
In 2015, Peyroux, a chiropractor, and Detelich, a former chiropractor, co-founded SCIA, a company that trained chiropractors and other healthcare practitioners how to deceptively market unproven stem cell therapy in their practices. SCIA trained its client clinics how to recruit patients through advertising, host free “educational seminars,” and conduct consultations. SCIA provided its clients access to a “vault” of sample advertisements rife with baseless claims of efficacy, and the appearance of being part of a nationwide SCIA network.
The defendants also used these deceptive marketing materials and “educational seminars” to attract stem cell patients to their own chiropractic clinic, SHC. SHC charged up to $5,000 per stem cell therapy injection, with many patients receiving more than one injection as part of their treatment. The group of consumers who purchased the defendants’ unproven stem cell therapy consisted almost exclusively of elderly and disabled people.
Following extensive litigation, in March 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia issued a summary judgment opinion and order in favour of the FTC and the State of Georgia on all counts.
In granting summary judgment, the court found that the defendants created and published false and misleading advertisements about the efficacy and approval of stem cell therapy injection treatments for a host of medical conditions (osteoarthritis, neuropathy, joint pain, and more) and embarked on a comprehensive marketing campaign to distribute those ads to the public and other medical clinics across the county.
On December 26, 2024, the court issued orders for injunctive and monetary relief. The first order permanently bans the defendants from advertising, marketing, promoting, offering for sale, or selling any regenerative medicine treatments, including any treatment or therapy that falls under the definition of stem cell therapy.
It also prohibits them from misrepresenting that any regenerative medicine compliance training program is approved by either the FTC or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Finally, it prohibits the defendants from providing others with the means of making false and misleading statements about regenerative medical treatment.
The second order, based on Georgia’s state law claims, requires Peyroux and Detelich to pay $3,310,146 that may be used to provide refunds to defrauded consumers, and Peyroux, Detelich and PBS to pay $1,845,000 in civil penalties, resulting in a total monetary penalty of $5,155,146.
The litigation was handled by attorneys Elizabeth Nach, Robert Van Someren Greve, Stacy Cammarano, and Cassandra Rasmussen and investigators Sallie Schools and Kenneth Chrzanowski from the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. The FTC appreciates the partnership of the Georgia Attorney General’s Office in bringing the action announced Wednesday.
