Michael Farrelly was first investigated by medical authorities in 2016, before going on to set up multiple companies to sell testosterone therapy unimpeded for almost a decade.(ABC News)
When Michael Farrelly stepped out onto a Gold Coast street in late 2016, wearing a jumper plastered in oversized Chanel logos, an ABC TV crew was waiting for him.
As he walked to a waiting convertible, the self-described "serial entrepreneur" dodged questions about charging patients as much as $44,000 for untested stem cell therapy with the promise it could treat everything from multiple sclerosis to cancer.
"Just wondering if you're aware that your company … has been referred to the Queensland Health Ombudsman for misleading and deceptive practices?" the reporter asked him.
"You'll have to talk to my lawyer about that," he replied, before speeding off into the night.
The Queensland Health Ombudsman never took any action against Michael Farrelly, who'd been operating his stem cell business in that state under an alias, Mikael Wolfe.
It would be nearly a decade before Michael Farrelly came onto the ABC's radar again.
When Background Briefing started looking into serious complaints about him last year, the businessman had undergone a makeover — he'd found a new product to spruik, moved to New South Wales and even taken up a new alias, Vergel Page.
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As Vergel Page, he was selling testosterone online to men with the promise of making them feel like a "million bucks", giving them "big coconut balls" and sending their sex drive "through the roof".
Many of his clients told us the reality of this treatment fell far short of his shiny sales pitch. Some were left thousands of dollars out of pocket, while others even experienced serious health impacts.
But now, almost a decade after he was first investigated by health authorities, Michael Farrelly has been permanently banned from the healthcare industry by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC).
In issuing the permanent ban this month, the HCCC found that in operating three online testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) clinics — Climax Clinic, Australian Institute of Sports Science and Peak Performance Clinic — Farrelly's conduct had "posed a risk to public safety".
It said that despite having no qualifications to do so, he'd made recommendations to his clients about medication, including telling one patient to double his testosterone dose "against the instruction of the named prescriber".
"A permanent prohibition order means Mr Farrelly is banned from providing any health service in any capacity in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria," NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner John Tansey told the ABC.
Testosterone replacement therapy is marketed as a silver bullet that can increase libido, boost energy levels and help men stay active as they age.(ABC News: Brendan Esposito)
"Mr Farrelly showed little regard for client safety or the laws that regulate health services. The evidence confirmed he posed a serious and ongoing risk to the public, and his refusal to cooperate left the Commission with no option but to impose a permanent ban."
The HCCC regulates hundreds of thousands of practitioners in NSW and this is just the third permanent ban it has made this year.
While the ban stops Farrelly from running a healthcare service, it appears there's nothing to stop him starting up another company in another industry.
He has also not been charged with any criminal offences.
TRT has exploded in popularity in recent years, spruiked to men by manosphere influencers including Joe Rogan. Many men are inundated with ads on social media, with clinics promising it's a cure-all for everything from flagging energy to low libido.
For one of Farrelly's former clients, retired builder Sam, the draw was the hope of alleviating the crippling pain of his osteoarthritis.
An online ad led him to contact one of Farrelly's online TRT clinics, the Australian Institute of Sports Science — mistakenly thinking it was associated with the Australian Institute of Sport — and he spoke to a man who called himself "Vergel Page".
Michael Farrelly's lawyers admitted to the HCCC that Vergel Page was a "sales pseudonym" for Farrelly.
Michael Farrelly went under the alias "Mikael Wolfe" when he was selling stem cell treatments a decade ago.(Supplied: Mikael Wolfe Facebook)
After a short phone consultation with a doctor, Sam paid $3,500 for a year's supply of TRT and ongoing care. But when his testosterone shot up to more than 10 times his original levels, neither Vergel Page nor the clinic would respond to him.
"I had no help," Sam says. "Zero."
Sam created a Facebook group whose members uncovered Michael Farrelly's business history.(ABC News: Dean Faulkner)
Sam is just one of many former Farrelly clients who spoke to Background Briefing, recounting similar stories of paying thousands of dollars for TRT, only to be ghosted.
Jamie, 48, developed a chronic heart issue, atrial fibrillation, after starting on injectable testosterone prescribed by a Farrelly TRT business called the Climax Clinic.
He and others also received abusive messages from Farrelly after contacting him for a refund.
In March last year, Farrelly put his TRT clinics into liquidation, saying there was no money left, and disappeared.
So Sam and some of his other clients started organising in a Facebook group to try and find him — to get their money back, and to get some answers.
They thought Farrelly was still operating in New South Wales, until one day Sam got an intriguing Facebook message: a tip that the TRT salesman, with his distinctive facial tattoos, had been spotted in a small, sleepy town in northern Tasmania.
Background Briefing found that property records showed a house in the Tasmanian town was purchased in late 2023 under Farrelly's mother's name.
A liquidator's report also confirmed that a car at this property, a white Mercedes-Benz, was owned by Michael Farrelly. Eyewitnesses said the TRT salesman was living at the address, too.
HCCC commissioner John Tansey told the ABC that Farrelly first came onto the regulator's radar in 2022, but his move interstate, while operating under multiple businesses and aliases, made its investigation very difficult.
In Australia, each state has its own individual health regulator. The national healthcare watchdog, AHPRA, currently only polices registered healthcare practitioners, such as doctors and nurses, and not unregistered practitioners like Farrelly.
The NSW HCCC's investigation into Farrelly stretched out for over a year, as investigators combed through business records and even got clinical records from the TRT clinics' software provider when, the HCCC said in its decision, Farrelly stopped cooperating.
Jamie was convinced to go on an injectable testosterone called Primoteston.(ABC News: Brendan Esposito)
Commissioner Tansey said the evidence collected during the HCCC's investigation confirmed Farrelly had facilitated the supply of prescription medication without having the qualification to do so, and that the commission was keeping an eye on him.
"Any breach of the order is a criminal offence and may result in prosecution," the commissioner said.
While the HCCC is only the regulator for NSW, its ban on Farrelly is also enforced by Victoria, Queensland and South Australia.
And in December last year, his new home base of Tasmania passed laws to recognise other states' healthcare prohibition orders, putting an end to the possibility of him being able to practise there too.
Sam thinks more needs to be done to make TRT safe, including national regulation and stricter rules on who can open up these clinics.
"I know there's a lot of people on Facebook that will hate me because they don't want it regulated because they won't get their medication," he says. "I just think the whole industry needs to be regulated."
Sam is now accessing TRT from a different source. He says his problem isn't with TRT, it's with unscrupulous providers like Michael Farrelly.(ABC News: Dean Faulkner)
He points to the fact that in January this year, while still under a temporary prohibition order from the HCCC over his existing TRT clinics, Michael Farrelly was able to open a new business that supplied testosterone replacement therapy.
Company records show that the business was registered at the Tasmanian address, where the HCCC's orders didn't apply, and Farrelly was named as its director. Its directorship was only transferred to someone else this week.
The ABC understands ASIC has not disqualified Farrelly from managing corporations.
The liquidator of Farrelly's TRT businesses has spent more than a year trying to trace more than $15 million of transactions that flowed in and out of the companies. He's expected to report to creditors within the month.
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