Carmen Scheibenbogen (Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin) is co-applicant with CellTrend GmbH on the foundational patent: WO 2016/188979 A1 "diagnostic use of antibodies against ß1 and ß2 adrenergic receptors in CFS/ME." A separate US patent was granted in 2020 covering the quantitative determination of antibodies against the β-adrenergic receptor as an indication of CFS, also jointly held by Charité (which is Scheibenbogen) and CellTrend. Patent applicants are listed as CellTrend (Harald Heidecke) and Charité (Scheibenbogen).
The consulting agreement: Scheibenbogen has an explicit consulting agreement with CellTrend, already disclosed elsewhere.
CellTrend GmbH (Luckenwalde, Germany) sells the patented ELISA panels directly to patients and clinicians: ME/CFS panel (β2 AdR, M3, M4 antibodies), POTS panel (adds M1, M2, M5 muscarinic, α1, α2 adrenergic, AT1R), Small Fibre Neuropathy panel, and her Long COVID panel.
Per CellTrend's own pricing page: €27 per biomarker, €108 (~$132 USD) for the full ME/CFS panel. Patients send blood samples directly to CellTrend's lab. CellTrend has international distribution partners, AONM in the UK/Ireland, others in add'l markets.
Harald Heidecke is CEO and patent co-holder; he or CellTrend appears as a co-author on essentially every Scheibenbogen paper that supposedly validates their assays.
This exact same group: Says they discover the biomarkers (Loebel, Scheibenbogen et al. 2016, Brain Behav Immun finding elevated β2 AdR antibodies in 20–30% of ME/CFS patients, with antibody measurement done by Heidecke at CellTrend). Files the patent jointly between Charité and CellTrend (2016).
Develops the test at CellTrend. Designs the therapy to remove the autoantibodies (immunoadsorption, Scheibenbogen 2018 PLOS ONE pilot, Tölle 2020 J Clin Med, Stein 2023 interim, Stein 2025 Lancet Regional Health – Europe).
Then they selects patients for the therapy based on testing positive on the patented assay (Stein 2025: "20 post-COVID ME/CFS patients found to have elevated β2 AR-AB" — measured at CellTrend on the patented assay).
Then they report therapeutic improvement which simultaneously validates #1 the diagnostic premise of the patented test, #2 the assay's clinical relevance, and #3 the demand for both more testing and more immunoadsorption. ISN'T THAT CUTE?
Every step generates revenue or future revenue for CellTrend (via Charité's patent royalty share) and supports Carmen Scheibenbogen's research program.
The Stein 2025 Lancet Regional Health paper that the Faghy review cites favorably (ref 66) lists funding from BMBF and the Weidenhammer Zöbele Foundation. The COI disclosure on that specific paper is comparatively thin given that:
The patient inclusion criterion is the patented assay
Scheibenbogen holds the patent jointly with the company that ran the assay
Scheibenbogen has a consulting agreement with that company (disclosed in her 2023 paper but not consistently in 2025)
The trial is a pre-post study with no control arm and n=20, which is the weakest possible design for evaluating a therapy in a fluctuating condition with strong placebo response and natural variation, but is only all that is needed to keep selling their products and services.
The España-Cueto 2025 plasma exchange RCT that the Faghy review buries in a single dependent clause...that one was placebo-controlled and randomized, and it found NO EFFICACY. The contrast tells you everything: the well-controlled study is negative; the uncontrolled selection-biased pre-post study from the patent holders is positive; the review treats them as equivalent evidence and tilts toward the positive one.
The Faghy review does not mention: that the diagnostic for patient selection is patented by one of the trial PIs, that Scheibenbogen has a consulting agreement with the patent-holding company, that the company sells the assay directly to patients worldwide, that the entire β2 AdR antibody → immunoadsorption pipeline is a closed commercial-academic loop with only these financially-interested "researchers" controlling everything.
This is the same structural pattern as Pretorius/Biocode: the diagnostic and the therapy are sold by the people who do the research that validates them, and the negative controlled trial gets minimized while the uncontrolled positive ones get framed as "promise."
The Faghy "no competing interests" declaration is dishonest as fuck, as always with these MECFS Mafia predators.