The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged the maker with false advertising for its memory improvement claims.

Aequorin is a holoprotein composed of two distinct units, the apoprotein that is called apoaequorin, which has an approximate molecular weight of 21 kDa, and the prosthetic group coelenterazine, the luciferin.

[12] Thus, titration studies show that all three calcium-binding sites are active but only two ions are needed to trigger the enzymatic reaction.

[21] However, in the presence of calcium ions, the protein undergoes a conformational change and converts its prosthetic group, coelenterazine-2-hydroperoxide, into excited coelenteramide and CO2.

[25] Since the emitted light can be easily detected with a luminometer, aequorin has become a useful tool in molecular biology for the measurement of intracellular Ca2+ levels.

[26] The early successful purification of aequorin led to the first experiments involving the injection of the protein into the tissues of living animals to visualize the physiological release of calcium in the muscle fibers of a barnacle.

[27] Since then, the protein has been widely used in many model biological systems, including zebrafish,[28] rats, mice, and cultured cells.

Therefore it is necessary to add coelenterazine into the culture medium of the cells to obtain a functional protein and thus use its blue light emission to measure Ca2+ concentration.

It lacks phenomena of intracellular compartmentalization or sequestration as is often seen for Voltage-sensitive dyes, and does not disrupt cell functions or embryo development.

In 2017, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged the maker with falsely advertising that the product improves memory, provides cognitive benefits, and is "clinically shown" to work.

[38] According to the FTC, "the marketers of Prevagen preyed on the fears of older consumers experiencing age-related memory loss".

[39][40][41] Prior to the suit, a clinical trial run by researchers employed by Quincy Bioscience "found no overall benefit compared to a placebo for its primary endpoints involving memory and cognition", while the company's advertising misleadingly cited a few contested subgroup analyses that showed slight improvements.

The order came less than two weeks after the parties argued the case before a three-judge panel of the circuit, where company lawyers admitted they did not "dispute that if you look across the entire 211 people who completed the study there was no statistically significant difference".

[47][48] As of September 21, 2020[update], Quincy Bioscience agreed to settle the claims that it misrepresented its Prevagen products as supporting brain health and helping with memory loss.