Asira Pharmaceuticals The company today reported in its second quarter that it is advancing its clinical trials following allegations of image tampering in a paper written by its CEO Financial and business updates.
Former CEO Ryan Cavas After being accused of changing the image in a scientific paper she wrote, she took a vacation in June. Chief Operating Officer of the company, Mark Litton, And then assumed daily leadership responsibilities.
Litton stated in today’s press release that the company “made significant progress in our corporate and clinical programs” in the last quarter. It is in the clinical development phase of compounds for Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease dementia.
Following the recent death of Tadataka Yamada, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Athira underwent further leadership changes.The company headquartered in Bothell, Washington, was appointed on August 5. Kelly Romano Replaced Yamada as chairman of the board of directors. Romano has a background in commercial architecture and aerospace and is the founder and CEO of BlueRipple Capital, LLC, a global technology company consulting firm.
Other recent appointments include Rachel Lenington, Previously served as Chief Technology Officer and Head of Product Development Strategy at Seagen and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mark Worthington Has been appointed as the general counsel.
On June 17, the news website STAT was released a story Check the claims of image processing in Kawas’s papers, which originally appeared in peer to peer, A service where scientists can comment on the completeness of data in scientific papers.
Comment appears for the first time 2016 In one paper and recently in three other studies. They followed the dissertations that Kawas studied when she was a graduate student at Washington State University, where she received her PhD in 2011.
The company said in June that it would complete a review “based on Dr. Kawas’s doctoral research during his time at Washington State University.”
These papers laid the foundation for the company’s current clinical trials of ATH-1017, a drug designed to regenerate brain tissue for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease.
In the Athira press release before his death, Yamada says, “ATH-1017 was discovered, developed and patented by Athira based on new data generated by the company. The company is confident in the therapeutic potential of ATH-1017 in the treatment of dementia.”
Although the company Doesn’t seem to Published preclinical data on ATH-1017, which recently Propose early detection About the first phase of the study of ATH-1017 at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.In addition, Athira is conducting its Phase 2/3 trial Open label extensionAfter completing the 26-week treatment period, people in the placebo or active group can choose to continue at the high dose for up to 26 weeks. The company expects data from the trial to be released in the first half of 2022, and plans to launch a phase 2 trial before the end of 2021 to test the drug in Parkinson’s disease patients.
The company’s net loss for the quarter was US$14 million, compared to US$2 million in the same period in 2020, of which US$12 million was used for research and development expenses. It has approximately US$350 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments on hand. The net loss per share was $0.38, slightly higher than analysts’ expectations.
Athira, which went public last year, is also facing litigation for possible misleading investors. After the midsummer after the allegations of image tampering came to light, its stock price fell by about half, and fell by another 6% on Monday.