On Tuesday a case was filed in the Western District of Texas by Manhoar Rao, as a proposed class action, against Cassava Sciences Inc., Remo Barbier, and Eric Schoen. The case is regarding violations of federal securities law regarding disclosures made regarding the Alzheimer’s treatment simufilam.
Alzheimer’s disease is a growing concern affecting millions of patients worldwide. One of the symptoms in the early stages of the disease is that the body begins creating an altered form of the protein filamin, called “filamin a.” This altered protein causes other effects in the body, including damaging the portions of the brain that deal with memory and recall. Simufilam was a drug intended to affect this altered protein and revert its format to that of the original filamin that does not have these toxic effect.
The class of plaintiffs in this case are those plaintiffs who purchased or owned stock in the Cassave Sciences, Inc. during the clinical effectiveness trials for simufilam. A citizen petition was filed before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the clinical trial data that had been submitted: “the methodology for studies ‘about Simufilam’s effects in experiments conducted on postmortem human brain tissue . . . defies logic, and the data presented again have hallmarks of manipulation.’”
Cassava’s initial response was to pursue retesting of the data and Cassava issued a statement that third party Quanterix had performed a reanalysis of the data. Quanterix immediately issued a statement denying any reanalysis, which resulted in a severe drop in stock price. Plaintiff is suing for violation of section 10(b) and 20(a) of the securities exchange act in relation to the false and fraudulent statements, seeking compensatory damages.
The plaintiff is represented by Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing.
