Science reports that an investigation accuses neuroscientist who often worked with Cassava of ‘scientific misconduct’ across multiple papers
Shares of biotech company Cassava Sciences Inc. were slammed in extended trading Thursday, after the publication Science reported that an investigation accused a neuroscientist who often collaborated with the company of “long-standing and egregious misconduct” in data management and record keeping that raised serious questions about his research.
Cassava Sciences SAVA, -4.83% stock was down more than 20% in after-hours trading.
Science reported that an investigation by the City University of New York accused Hoau-Yan Wang — a neuroscientist who is a faculty member there — of “scientific misconduct” across 20 research papers. The publication said that many of those papers “provided key support” for simufilam, an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that Cassava has been working on. The CUNY report said Wang disputed the allegations.
Science said the investigation also found that Lindsay Burns, a senior vice president for neuroscience at Cassava and a co-author on some of the research, “bears primary or partial responsibility for some of the possible misconduct or scientific errors.”
Cassava’s research on combating Alzheimer’s has faced criticism and questions in the past, along with deeper regulatory scrutiny. The company has defended its research in response.
The university and the company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Wang also could not be immediately reached for comment.
The CUNY report, which Science linked to in its story, was based on a roughly 10-month investigation by a faculty committee and included interviews with Wang, a member of his lab, administrators and a senior editor who represented the ethics team for the Public Library of Sciences journal series, the report said. The committee also examined research data, Wang’s responses to the allegations and an analysis of blot images used in the research in question.
However, the CUNY report said the investigation was unable to gauge the merit of the allegations, “due to the failure of Dr. Wang to provide underlying, original data or research records and the low quality of the published images that had to be examined in their place.” The report said that it “appears likely” that no primary data or research notebooks related to the accusations exist, making it impossible to analyze figures from certain experiments.
“Dr. Wang has therefore failed to provide the data and research records necessary for the committee to directly address the concerns surrounding the published work … identified in the allegations,” the report said. “Thus, the integrity of Dr. Wang’s work remains highly questionable.”
Wang, in response to the investigation, accused investigators of being prejudiced against him, the report said, and said they ran afoul of university guidelines during the inquiry and lacked “a basic understanding of western blot analysis.”
The investigators recommended that research publications included in its allegations demand verifiable original data to corroborate the report’s allegations.
Shares of Cassava are down 41% so far this year.