Feb 19 (Reuters) – Cassava Sciences said on Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice had ended its probe into the company regarding allegations of research misconduct for its experimental Alzheimer’s drug simufilam.
The company said the probe ended four months after the Justice Department dismissed a criminal indictment in Maryland accusing Hoau-Yan Wang, a medical professor and former Cassava adviser who allegedly submitted false data regarding the drug.
Cassava scrapped the development of the drug for Alzheimer’s last year following disappointing clinical trial results.
The biotech has previously been charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for misleading claims about the results of Alzheimer’s clinical trials. It paid a monetary penalty without admitting to or denying the SEC’s allegations.
These outcomes end the investigations of the company by the DOJ and the SEC, Cassava said.
The company is now developing simufilam for tuberous sclerosis complex-related epilepsy, a rare genetic disorder, according to its website.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Sahil Pandey and Sriparna Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
