Alex Goen, whose real name is Alexander Szynalski, is the founder of Goen Technologies, which manufactured TrimSpa. After long legal battles with the Federal Trade Commission over misleading marketing ploys, Goen eventually sold the rights to the TrimSpa name, which is enjoying a resurgence with a newly revised product.
History
Goen founded his pharmaceutical company in 1999 as his self-help motivational seminars took root. The self-proclaimed weight-loss, healthy-living guru hired the late Playboy bunny Anna Nicole Smith as his TrimSpa spokeswoman and took the company global. Smith helped to move TrimSpa into the limelight and by 2003, the company's TrimSpa X32 formula was a huge hit.
Trouble
In January 2007, Goen agreed to pay a $1.5 million settlement with the FTC over unsubstantiated claims regarding his weight loss pill. Goen and his marketers claimed that the product's main ingredient, Hoodia gordoni, caused rapid weight loss. Television, magazine and NASCAR advertising was pulled and Goen agreed not to make claims about the health benefits, safety, side effects or performance of the diet supplement.
Ongoing Battles
In June 2008, Goen Technologies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the New Jersey-based company that makes TrimSpa. Coupled with its legal troubles, the 2007 death of Anna Nicole Smith was partially blamed for the company's downturn. At the time of the filing, according to NJ.com, Goen Technologies listed $30 million in debts and $1.4 million in assets, after peaking in 2004 with sales of more than $160 million. By September 2008, the company went belly-up with a chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Sales
TrimSpa can be purchased online through a company that bought the rights to the name under an organizational name of NAYA LP. NAYA claims to sell the newly revised version of the weight loss pill and reports that any other sites selling the product are pushing pills that are expired from Groen's bankrupt New Jersey company's surplus. The main ingredient in the new supplement is chromium.
Goen Now
Goen spends most of his time since his weight loss supplement company went bankrupt riding motorcycles he purchased with proceeds from his failed company. Very little is written about Goen and his current activities off the motorcycle show circuit since Smith's death. Goen can be seen showing off his two custom cycles in various issues of "Cycle Connections Magazine," "Bike Rallies" and the Discovery Channel's "American Chopper."
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