The scientist behind the Alzheimer’s drug candidate has been indicted on charges of research fraud

A neuroscientist whose work helped pave the way for a drug candidate for Alzheimer’s was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on fraud charges.

The indictment, announced Friday by the Justice Department, brings additional scrutiny to the work of Hoau-Yan Wang, who has had multiple degrees withdrawn and is facing an investigation by the City University of New York, his employer. which was later discontinued.

The charges in the indictment are related to the alleged fabrication of images and research data that Wang may have used to secure federal grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Wang, a professor of medicine at the City University of New York, collaborated with Cassava Sciences, an Austin, Texas-based pharmaceutical company, as it investigated an Alzheimer’s drug candidate called simufilam. He was awarded about $16 million in early-stage drug development grants in collaboration with Cassava, according to the indictment.

The indictment charges Wang with one count of fraud against the United States, two counts of fraud and one count of making false statements. He accuses Wang of manipulating or adding to images of Western blots, a laboratory method researchers use to identify proteins, in order to strengthen evidence and help secure grants.

The indictment also suggests that Wang may have lied to scientific journals to validate his research, which contributed to the early development of simufilam.

The drug is currently in a late-stage clinical trial, and about 735 patients had participated as of May 2024, according to a news release from Cassava last month.

Wang did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In 2023, he told The Wall Street Journal that a CUNY investigation made “no definitive finding of data manipulation, consistent with what I’ve been saying for two years.”

Cassava said in a statement Friday that Wang had not attended her most recent trial.

In a news release, the company said: “Wang’s work under these grants related to the early stages of development of the Company’s drug candidate and diagnostics and how it was intended to work.”

Cassava added that Wang “had no involvement in the Company’s Phase 3 clinical trials of simufilam.”

A Cassava spokesperson also pointed to a news release issued by the company in September 2023 that said academic researchers outside CUNY had found evidence that the drug may affect signaling pathways suspected to be involved in Alzheimer’s.

CUNY learned of the indictment on Friday, a spokesman said in an email, adding: “The university has and will continue to cooperate to the fullest extent with the federal government’s investigation until the matter is resolved.”

The indictment does not specifically name the university, the drug, or the company, listing them as “University 1,” “Drug A,” and “Company 1,” respectively.

However, Cassava shares fell nearly 35% on Friday in a sharp decline that prompted multiple trading halts.

In general, the manipulation of research images and the handling of allegations of research misconduct is a growing concern in the scientific community.

The issue gained particular attention last summer, when then-Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne resigned from his post after allegations emerged that the images had been manipulated within his lab. Tessier-Lavigne said he never submitted documents he didn’t think were accurate, and noted that a panel investigating his work did not find he knew of misconduct within his lab.

Then, in January, an amateur scientist made allegations of image manipulation of research by top scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which led to the subsequent retraction. Dana-Farber said it took decisive action to correct the scientific record.

Wang’s work has faced questions for some time, as reported in the journal Science. The Journal received a report from CUNY that found evidence suggesting research misconduct. The university stopped its investigation after Science published the report.

Numerous journal articles Wang authored have been retracted, according to the website Retraction Watch.