Memory
pill maker sued on grounds no proof it works
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[January 10, 2017]
By Diane Bartz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Quincy Bioscience
LLC, which makes the memory supplement Prevagen, was hit with a lawsuit
on Monday filed by the Federal Trade Commission and New York attorney
general's office, which alleged that there is no proof the supplement
works.
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The medicine, which costs $24 to $68 for 30 pills, is advertised on
cable and broadcast television, according to the FTC, which is
seeking refunds for customers who bought Prevagen.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the
Southern District of New York, said that Quincy Bioscience had sold
some $165 million worth of Prevagen between 2007 and mid-2015,
according to court filings.
The lawsuit says that Quincy Bioscience based much of its
advertising for Prevagen on a single study, called the Madison
Memory Study, which gave the drug or a placebo to 218 people and
then had them perform certain tasks on a computer.
"The Madison Memory Study failed to show a statistically
significant improvement in the treatment group over the placebo
group on any of the nine computerized cognitive tasks," the lawsuit
said.
Quincy Bioscience said that it vehemently disagreed with the
complaint, which it called overreach. "Quincy Bioscience will
vigorously defend ourselves," the company said in a statement that
called into question how the government analyzed data from its
study.
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The two Democrats on the FTC voted to approve the complaint. The
single Republican did not participate and two of the five commission
seats are vacant.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2017/Jan/10/images/ads/current/charrons_bch041713.png)
(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Andrew Hay)
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