Because the CEO was accused of tampering with data and other academic misconduct, the market value of Athira Pharma directly evaporated 1.7 billion yuan a day

Athira Pharma is known for its long-term development of drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

On the evening of June 17, 2021, the company announced that CEO Leen Kawas had been temporarily suspended, awaiting the board of directors to review actions related to Kawas’ doctoral studies at Washington State University

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As soon as the news came out, on June 18, 2021, at the close of the market on Friday, Athira Pharma’s stock price plummeted 38.

Although Kawas will temporarily give up day-to-day leadership of the company, she will remain on the board of directors during the investigation

With Kawas temporarily withdrawing from his leadership position, COO Mark Litton temporarily took over the company's daily operations before the end of the investigation.

Citing Stat News reports, the review was in response to PubPeer's allegations that four scientific papers in which Kawas was listed as the lead author contained tampered images of experimental results

PubPeer is a non-profit online forum where users discuss specific scientific papers

Earlier, Elisabeth Bik, a research integrity consultant in California, USA, questioned Kawas' research on PubPeer

Bik pointed out that in several papers on PubPeer, some of the results in her opinion were "PS passed", and some pictures of the results looked suspicious in the research paper

Bik explained that in order for reviewers to effectively evaluate such problems, researchers need to retrieve the original laboratory results from the experiment

At this time, it is not clear whether the paper that raised questions on PubPeer involves the ongoing review of Athira Pharma’s board of directors

Southwestern University also issued a statement on Friday, claiming that it is also reviewing allegations of misconduct in Kawas' research while at university

In June 2020, Athira raised $85 million in a round of private investment

The company is studying treatments to restore neuronal health and prevent neurodegeneration, and is conducting late-stage clinical trials of molecules for the treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's dementia

According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 6 million Americans currently suffer from Alzheimer's

The goal of Athira’s main drug candidate, ATH-1017, is to strengthen the brain’s own repair system, which in turn can combat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s dementia