Surgisphere
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Healthcare analytics |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Founder | Sapan Desai |
| Headquarters | Cook County, Illinois , United States |
Number of employees | 11 (2020) |
Surgisphere is a U.S.-based firm specializing in healthcare analytics, established in 2008 by Sapan Desai. Originally focused on marketing medical textbooks, the company attracted significant attention in May 2020 after releasing extensive COVID-19 patient datasets that were subsequently found to be unreliable. These datasets underpinned research articles published in The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine, which indicated that hydroxychloroquine increased mortality among COVID-19 patients. As a result, the World Health Organization temporarily paused clinical trials involving hydroxychloroquine, later resuming and ultimately halting them following the withdrawal of these studies.
History
Founded by Sapan Desai—then a medical resident—in 2008, Surgisphere initially operated as a medical textbook marketing company. The firm came under scrutiny for posting fraudulent five-star reviews on Amazon, attributed to accounts falsely representing medical professionals. Desai subsequently pursued a career as a vascular surgeon at Northwest Community Hospital.
The organization managed three branches: Surgical Outcomes Collaborative, Vascular Outcomes, and Quartz Clinical. Between 2010 and 2013, Surgisphere published the online periodical Journal of Surgical Radiology, which ceased publication despite claims of having 50,000 subscribers; this discontinuation was reportedly due to Desai’s limited availability.
As of June 2020, Surgisphere had a workforce of 11 employees and maintained a comprehensive global database of hospital records compiled since the company’s inception. The firm marketed a cloud-based healthcare data analytics system utilizing sophisticated machine learning techniques and decision tree methodologies designed to support its worldwide research collaborations.
After the retraction of its COVID-19-related publications in June 2020, Surgisphere removed its social media presence, and its website was taken offline on June 15, 2020.
Diagnostic tool
In March 2020, Surgisphere introduced a "rapid diagnostic tool" intended for COVID-19 assessment, claiming deployment in over 1,000 hospitals. The African Federation for Emergency Medicine (AFEM) initially endorsed this COVID-19 Severity Scoring Tool across 26 countries and initiated validation efforts. However, amid questions regarding the reliability of Surgisphere’s data featured in leading medical journals, AFEM recommended discontinuing use of the tool by June 2020.
Ivermectin preprint
An April 2020 preprint authored by Desai and colleagues, relying on Surgisphere’s data, proposed that ivermectin reduced mortality rates among COVID-19 patients. This retrospective matched-control study was withdrawn by late May due to concerns about the data’s validity. Despite its retraction, certain health authorities in Latin America had endorsed ivermectin partly based on this study—a position later criticized by the Pan American Health Organization.
Articles in The Lancet and NEJM
In May 2020, Surgisphere supplied dubious data that was utilized in COVID-19 research articles published by The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). The study in The Lancet asserted that hydroxychloroquine was linked to increased mortality among hospitalized patients, leading the World Health Organization to suspend global clinical trials involving the drug. Meanwhile, the NEJM publication concluded that ACE inhibitors and angiotensin-receptor blockers did not adversely affect COVID-19 patients. Both investigations depended on Surgisphere’s dataset, purportedly sourced from 1,200 hospitals; however, this dataset contained numerous inaccuracies and lacked clarity regarding its data acquisition procedures.
The dataset faced extensive criticism due to unrealistic details, including hospitals being incorrectly located, raising doubts about Surgisphere’s capacity to compile such a vast collection of information. More than 200 researchers publicly expressed skepticism about the data’s validity, highlighting the implausible scale and breadth of the database. Critics pointed out several warning signs related to the studies’ methodologies and the origins of their data.
On 3 June 2020, both journals released "expressions of concern" regarding these publications. The authors Mehra, Ruschitzka, and Patel retracted the Lancet article on 4 June after Surgisphere declined to share the complete dataset for independent examination, citing confidentiality agreements. The NEJM also withdrew its related study. Following these retractions, the WHO recommenced hydroxychloroquine clinical trials.
Despite claims suggesting collaboration, NHS Scotland denied having any contractual association with Surgisphere. Subsequently, Amit Patel—a co-author and brother-in-law of Surgisphere’s founder Desai—was dismissed from his academic position at the University of Utah due to his involvement in the controversy.
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, described the paper as "a fabrication" and "a monumental fraud," while Eric Rubin from NEJM admitted to publishing a flawed study. This episode significantly damaged Surgisphere’s credibility and highlighted the dangers of relying on unverified datasets in influential medical research.
Overall credibility
A July 2020 report by the New York Times raised questions about Surgisphere’s data assertions, revealing that an employee manually compiled data for QuartzClinical and was aware of only one hospital contract—contradicting claims made in the May 1 NEJM paper about data from 169 hospitals worldwide and the May 22 The Lancet paper.[1]
An investigation by The Guardian uncovered that several Surgisphere staff members lacked scientific qualifications, including a science fiction writer and an adult model who was listed as a marketing executive. In May 2020, Surgisphere’s LinkedIn profile had fewer than 100 followers and identified just six employees. The company maintained a limited online footprint with no Twitter activity recorded between October 2017 and March 2020.[2]
Further scrutiny by Elisabeth Bik and others detected possible image manipulation in one of Desai’s earlier first-author publications.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name[3]
- United States Health Care Companies
- Data Analytics Firms
- Companies Located in Cook County, Illinois
- Cases of Scientific Misconduct
- Websites Closed in 2020
- Websites Launched in 2008
- American Businesses Founded in 2008
- American Businesses Closed in 2020
- Illinois Establishments Founded in 2008
- Illinois Closures in 2020
- Companies of the United States by year of establishment
- American companies established in 2008