A scientist whose research has been at the center of controversy over an Alzheimer’s drug candidate has been charged with fraud.
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Hoau-Yan Wang, a professor at the City College of New York, on charges of falsification of data to secure grants of approximately $16 million from the National Institutes of Health.
The studies of Dr. Wang has adopted research on a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease and simufilam, a drug in advanced clinical trials. The manufacturer of Simufilam, Cassava Sciences, a pharmaceutical company based in Texas, says that the drug improves cognition in Alzheimer’s patients.
Alzheimer’s disease affects about six million Americans — a number expected to double by 2050 — and promising treatments are causing enormous excitement. The cassava stock rose after each round of reported results from its trials.
But some scientists openly despised the drug, saying that its mechanism of action and the results were said to be unbelievable. Some went further and accused the company and Dr. Wang, its scientific consultant, of manipulating the results. Several journals retracted or attached statements of concern to Dr.’s publications. Wang and a co-author on Cassava.
After the accusation is announced on Friday, Cassava stock fell down at its lowest price since October 2020.
Remi Barbier, Cassava’s founder and chief executive, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in a statement posted on its website, the company said that the work of Dr. Wang is “related to the early stages of the company’s drug candidate and diagnostic test development.”
“Dr. Wang and his former public university medical school had no involvement in the company’s Phase 3 clinical trial of simufilam,” the statement said.
A publicist for the company pointed to a September 2023 publication that he said provides “independent scientific verification.”
An investigation by the City University of New York, of which the college is a part, struggled for months to gain access to Dr. Wang. Eventually, members of the investigative committee concluded that Dr. Wang had been “reckless” in his failure to preserve or provide original data, an offense that “amounts to gross research misconduct.”
“The university has and will continue to cooperate fully with the federal government’s investigation until the matter is resolved,” a university spokesperson said in a statement.
Dr. did not respond. Wang to requests for comment on the indictment.
Dr. is now accused. Wang falsified data on grant applications over a nearly eight-year period ending in April 2023, according to the Justice Department. Some of the grants funded Dr.’s salary. Wang and university laboratory research.
Federal prosecutors charged Dr. Wang of multiple counts of fraud and misrepresentation. If convicted, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 55 years.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Washington is investigating the case. The lawsuit was filed in Maryland, where the NIH is based.
In an emailed statement, Renate Myles, a spokeswoman for the NIH, said the agency “does not discuss grant compliance reviews of specifically funded awards, recipient institutions or supported entities. investigator.”
“However, the NIH is taking it research misconduct very seriously,” he said. “NIH promptly and carefully reviews all allegations of research misconduct received.”
