Valkee Ltd now began the third launch of their product – the second relaunch of the LED headset – with its new target North America. But: How could the mighty U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allow such a scam device onto the market?

It turns out, they didn’t. The FDA had refused the Valkee “HumanCharger” import into the U.S.A. earlier this year. For a number of reasons, mainly misbranding.

UPDATE 7/2017:
The FDA changed its code, the document can be found clicking the link above and then
Feb > 2015 > Country: Finland. [screenshot]

There are several ways to get “approved” by the FDA, depending on the classification. Valkee’s HumanCharger got no 510(k) clearance, and certainly not a Premarket Approval (PMA), for which one must present sufficient clinical trial data.

It is not listed as approved with the FDA (the listings here) in any possible way. [- If any reader has additional information, please let us know. -]

That, however, does not mean it is sold illegally. Many light therapy devices, for example such for cosmetic uses, are exempt from FDA regulation. Then they can’t make relevant medical claims. That’s exactly what Valkee Ltd demonstrates: The device is sold as a lifestyle – weight loss aid – sleep promoter – energy booster. Just typical scam claims. It may work on tech people who are prone to fall for such innovations.

Valkee does not need any research staff for this strategy, the marketing trial being published. So the company fired its Research Manager Heidi Jurvelin, the Research and Science Liaison Manager Melanie Rueger PhD, sales people, and replaced the CEO Pekka Somerto with Aki Backman. (Jurvelin and others now appear at Valkee’s sister project JouZen Oy  aka OURA, fulfilling predictions by the social media influencer Vesa Linja-aho: Valkee scales down to a sales bureau, and JouZen takes over.)

The new course is set. Personally, I would miss this absurd tale when it came to an abrupt end, now as they finally seem to stop scamming of sick people and look for the too-healthy jet-set clients. However, it does not look good for Valkee Ltd. There are many wonder treatments for jet lag already.

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p.s. at least left Valkee

• Heidi Jurvelin (to JouZen/Oura)
• Melanie Rueger
• Tuukka Josefsson
• Tero Vallius (to JouZen/Oura)
• Jonna Muurinen