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| Alzheimer's Researcher Indicted for Allegedly Falsifying Data to Secure $16 Million NIH Funding |
A federal grand jury has indicted Hoau-Yan Wang, a 67-year-old medical professor at the City University of New York, for allegedly falsifying data to fraudulently obtain $16 million in federal research funding from the National Institutes of Health for developing a controversial Alzheimer's drug and diagnostic test. Wang is charged with one count of major fraud against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, and one count of false statements. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison for the major fraud charge, 20 years for each wire fraud count, and five years for the false statements charge.
Wang was a paid collaborator with Cassava Sciences, a pharmaceutical company based in Austin, Texas. His research supported Cassava's Alzheimer's treatment, Simufilam, which is now in Phase III trials. Simufilam is claimed to restore the structure and function of a scaffolding protein in the brain, potentially slowing cognitive decline in Alzheimer's patients. However, Wang's research has long been under scrutiny, with outside researchers expressing doubts and concerns.
An internal investigation at CUNY in 2023, prompted by 31 misconduct allegations made in 2021, found evidence highly suggestive of deliberate scientific misconduct by Wang for 14 of the allegations. These centered around doctored and fabricated images from Western blotting, a technique used to detect proteins. The investigation was hampered by Wang's failure to provide original data or research records and the low quality of the published images. The committee also implicated Lindsay Burns, Cassava's lead scientist on its Alzheimer's program, suggesting she bears some responsibility for the misconduct.
In March 2022, five of Wang's articles published in the journal PLOS One were retracted due to integrity concerns with images in the papers. Other papers by Wang have also been retracted or had statements of concern attached. Additionally, in September 2022, the FDA inspected Wang's analytical work and techniques used in the simufilam trial, finding numerous issues. Federal authorities allege that Wang manipulated data and images of Western blots, altering them to falsely represent scientific results in his research submitted to the NIH.
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