NYT: Cassava executives resigned

Via the New York Times, this news:  

Two top officials at Cassava Sciences — a small pharmaceutical company in Austin, Texas, embroiled in years of controversy over a proposed Alzheimer’s drug — have resigned.

Remi Barbier, the chairman and chief executive, stepped down on Wednesday but will remain at Cassava “without duties or responsibilities” until September, according to a company statement.

Lindsay Burns, Cassava’s chief scientist, who is married to Mr. Barbier, will also leave the company.

In June, a neuroscientist at the City College of New York, Hoau-Yan Wang, was charged with fraud by a federal grand jury for allegedly falsifying data to obtain research grants from the National Institutes of Health.

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 Wang’s studies have been retracted or questioned by scientific journals.

It is amazing that these scientists to get as far as clinical trials. That's a lot of patients affected.