Gay millionaire couple who created IVF family face fraud quiz over firm

However, Tony Barlow and Barrie Drewitt are back in the spotlight as the global medical research firm they founded is under investigation.

Euroderm Research, which carried out clinical trials for dermatological, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, is suspected of faking data. It went into liquidation in March.

The Drewitt-Barlows with their children, including eight-year-old twins

The company is alleged to have fabricated test participants or used results from human guinea pigs more than once to make up numbers.

Regulators are sifting through company files and databases to find out if strict laws governing clinical trials have been breached.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency will then decide whether or not to prosecute the Drewitt-Barlows, as the couple call themselves.

A source alleged: 'It is incredible what is claimed to have been going on.

'For a leading research company whose reputation is based on testing products, it's about as serious as it gets.'

The allegations are the latest episode in the eventful lives of the men who made their fortune by selling a chemical research firm in 1998 for £4million.

Tony, 43, and Barrie, 39, then very publicly pursued their dream to become parents together.

Twins Saffron (Left) and Aspen Drewitt-Barlow celebrate their first birthday with their parents Barrie Drewitt and Tony Barlow

After a five-year transatlantic battle and with the help of some of the world's leading IVF doctors and surrogate mothers, they created their ideal family.

First came twins, daughter Saffron and son Aspen, now eight.

They were created after two eggs from a donor were inseminated, one with Barrie's sperm, which was modified to create a girl, and one with Tony's to conceive a boy.

Two years after they were born, the couple had another son, Orlando.

An egg was taken from the same genetic mother, Tracie McCune, and fertilised with Tony's sperm before being carried by a surrogate mother.

The pair, who live in a Grade II listed stately home in Chelmsford, Essex, stoked further controversy by becoming the first same-sex couple to be jointly named parents on their children's birth certificate.

They shower their brood with designer goods and told how Saffron wears Chanel No 5 perfume.

The couple briefly left Britain for Spain, citing homophobic abuse, where they set up a private school which was later closed down.

They also fell out with Miss McCune, who accused them of raising spoilt brats.

The couple 'wed' in an extravagant civil ceremony in 2006 but later provoked anger by posting pictures of their children on a gay dating website.

In March 2006, Tony was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent treatment.

The men set up Euroderm Research in 2003 and invested millions of pounds in the venture.

They also run Euroderm Ltd, a consumer product testing company set up in the same year.

Solicitor John Zucker, for the firm, said: 'Euroderm Ltd is not under investigation by the MHRA.'

A spokesman for the regulators said: 'An investigation is ongoing.'