The University of Utah has “mutually agreed” to terminate the faculty appointment of Amit Patel, who was among the authors of two retracted papers on Covid-19 and who appears to have played a key role in involving a little-known company that has ignited a firestorm of controversy.

“The terminated position was an unpaid adjunct appointment with the Department of Biomedical Engineering,” a university spokesperson told STAT. Patel had listed the affiliation on both papers, published in the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. The spokesperson declined to comment on whether the decision was related to the retractions.

“The University of Utah does not comment on reasons surrounding termination of academic appointments,” the spokesperson said.

Late Sunday, after publication of this story, Patel tweeted he had “verbally terminated” his affiliation with the University of Utah a week ago, and that the relationship had ended formally this past Friday. “There is a much bigger story for which I still do not have the information,” he wrote.