A Sacramento, Calif.-based medical equipment manufacturer has filed for bankruptcy as it faces an $8.1 million legal judgment in a dispute over a device to treat diabetes, the Sacramento Business Journal reported. Bionica Inc. markets an insulin infusion pump that can be carried by patients in their pockets to regularly deliver insulin and can “rescue people who previously have had no chance for a normal life,” the company states on its website. Bionica operates out of a space in McClellan Park, and was incorporated in 2010, according to its filings with the California Secretary of State’s office. Bionica’s founder Gregory Gilbert and its sister company, Trina Health LLC, have been accused of false advertising of Bionica's diabetes products, in a lawsuit that the inventor of the company’s products, Dr. Thomas Aoki, filed in 2011. Amid the long legal battle, Bionica filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. In its filing, the company stated that its assets were between $50,001 and $100,000 and that it faced between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities. Most of those liabilities are connected to an $8.1 million judgment that was handed down by a federal judge late last year, Gilbert told the Business Journal. In the judgment handed down in November 2020, U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley found Gilbert liable for patent infringement and falsely advertising diabetes treatments that were invented by Aoki.
