Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Litigation Release No. 26641 / September 16, 2026

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte, No. 3:21-cv-01911-CRB (N.D. Cal. filed Mar. 18, 2021)

SEC Agrees to Settle Litigation with Co-Founders of San Franciso Biotech Company

On September 14, 2026, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed consents and proposed final judgments as to Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte, co-founders of uBiome, Inc., a San Francisco-based private medical testing company that ceased operations in 2019.

The SEC’s complaint, filed on March 18, 2021, alleges that Richman, uBiome's CEO, and Apte, its Chief Scientific Officer, raised funds from investors by portraying the company as achieving rapid growth based on its strong track record of receiving health insurance reimbursements for its tests. The complaint further alleges that this claim was false and misleading because uBiome's purported success depended on duping doctors into ordering unnecessary tests and other improper practices directed by Richman and Apte, which, once discovered, led insurers to claw back their previous reimbursement payments to uBiome.

Without admitting the allegations in the SEC's complaint, Richman and Apte consented to the entry of final judgments, subject to court approval, permanently enjoining them from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder; imposing three-year officer-and-director bars; prohibiting them for three years from participating in the issuance, purchase, offer, or sale of any security (except for purchases or sales for their own personal accounts); and ordering each of them to pay a $125,000 penalty.

The SEC’s litigation was conducted by Thomas Eme and David Zhou and supervised by Jason M. Bussey and Jason H. Lee of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office.