The AveXis situation got that much spicier

Last we heard from AveXis, the Novartis division behind the summer’s data-falsification scandal, the company said it dismissed two top scientists in connection with the issue. Now, in a lengthy letter to the FDA, AveXis said those two scientists, who are brothers, “either manipulated or pressured laboratory personnel to manipulate data” and then refused to cooperate with an internal investigation.

As STAT’s Ed Silverman reports, the latest disclosure sheds light on an increasingly messy situation. The FDA has made quite clear its displeasure with Novartis’s decision to wait more than three months before reporting the data manipulation, and the company’s resulting explanation seems to have escalated its dispute with the departed AveXis scientists, Brian and Allan Kaspar.

Brian Kaspar has denied any allegations of wrongdoing, and his attorney said yesterday that he cooperated with Novartis’s investigation. “AveXis shamelessly attempts to blame others for its own disclosure decisions to the FDA,” the attorney said.

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