Executives Depart Cassava, Maker of Disputed Alzheimer’s Drug

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In collaboration with Dr. Burns, Dr. Wang published research studies in support of Cassava’s drug candidate for Alzheimer’s, called simufilam. It is currently in advanced trials, although more than five of Dr. Wang’s studies have been retracted or questioned by scientific journals. Mr. Barbier, Dr. Burns and Dr. Wang could not immediately be reached for comment. In a leaked report last fall, a City University of New York committee investigating the research faulted Dr. Burns for some of the errors discovered in the papers. Its members accused Dr. Wang of “longstanding and egregious misconduct in data management and record keeping.” In a regulatory filing earlier this month, Cassava reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating the company and two senior employees, who were not identified. Scientists have long criticized the methodological “oddities” in Cassava’s experiments with simufilam, citing suspicious figures in its published papers and questioning the underlying hypotheses about the drug’s mode of action. Dr. William Hu, an Alzheimer’s disease expert at Rutgers University and early critic of Cassava’s studies, said he hoped this was the first of many steps the company would take to make its research rigorous and transparent.