SEC files charges against Clayton Thomas over medical device venture
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday filed charges alleging that local entrepreneur Clayton Thomas “fraudulently raised $730,000 from one investor” related to a medical device venture.
An attorney for Thomas did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
According to the federal agency, Thomas in early 2019 raised the funds via his firm Personalized Healthcare Solution. The filing does not identify the investor. The SEC contends that the funds were to be used to purchase TM-Flow diagnostic devices, which would then be distributed to medical offices and generate returns through patient usage.
The SEC alleges that Thomas “made numerous misrepresentations to the investor, including overstating both the projected monthly returns from the Medical Devices as well as the cost to purchase each Medical Device.” Thomas also, according to the federal agency, used investor funds for personal use, and the investor “lost substantially all of its original investments as a result of Thomas’s misconduct.” (The filing contends that the investor saw $116,000 in returns, with a $614,000 loss.)
According to the filing, Thomas founded Personalized Healthcare Solution in Brentwood in 2018. The state dissolved the company in 2022 and “all of its known bank accounts have been closed.” The SEC also alleged that Thomas knew the investment could be less profitable than he was promising “because he had prior experience with a previous investor in which the Medical Devices produced little to no return.”
Invoices cited by the federal government show that Thomas bought the devices for an average price of $12,550 while initially telling the investor they cost $50,000.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee. The SEC is asking for the court to seek disgorgement “of all ill-gotten gains” and impose civil penalties.
According to an online biography, Thomas founded Personalized Healthcare in 2015, not 2018, and since 2019 has been chair of the board of ROOT, described as “a social sharing community dedicated to authenticity, integrity, education in and around health and wellness.”
