The family says its products have helped hundreds of thousands of patients live more comfortably. They also are considered mavericks who are pushing salaries and perks to new heights in the nonprofit tissue-bank field, while discounting industry safety standards, records and interviews show. The state attorney general is probing their business ties to see if nonprofit Pacific Coast directs too much money to the family's for-profit venture. And health regulators have cited the tissue bank for its handling of human tissue, inspection records show. Lawyers for the Gendlers say the family is doing nothing illegal.
Money is made in the industry through product sales.
Instead, they charge marked-up fees for handling, processing and distributing the tissue. That distinction allows them to step around federal and state laws banning profits off body parts. Part of the money is used to pay salaries and perks to Gendler. Half the proceeds go to the for-profit company, which is owned by Gendler's wife, records show. He is the highest-paid executive of a nonprofit tissue bank in the United States, according to a Register analysis of the industry.