After seven years of litigation, a federal district court has ordered the makers of dietary supplement Prevagen to stop making claims a lawsuit said were deceptive.
“Following seven years of hard-fought litigation, including a jury trial, we are pleased that the Court has ordered Quincy Bioscience to cease making claims about Prevagen that mislead Americans concerned about memory loss," said Samuel Levine, Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
"Companies should take note and remember that health claims need to be backed up by reliable scientific evidence."
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Federal Trade Commission and the New York Attorney General challenging advertisements that claimed Prevagen had been "clinically shown" to improve memory.
The long-fought case is probably not over. Prevagen maker Quincy Bioscience is expected to appeal the issue, which was fought on two fronts and produced seemingly conflicting decisions.
Some but not all ...
In February 2024, a New York jury ruled that many of Prevagen's claims were not supported by reliable evidence and that some, but not all, of its claims were "materially misleading."
But this week, a U.S. District Court judge in New York affirmed an earlier injunction banning further use of the disputed claims.
Quincy Products welcomed the jury finding in March. "We are pleased that a federal jury in New York concluded today that the New York Attorney General failed to prove its deceptive advertising and labeling case against Quincy Bioscience's key advertising claims for Prevagen," Quincy said in a statement.
The company has not yet responded to ConsumerAffairs' request for a statement on the latest development.
Ingredients include jellyfish
Prevagen's main ingredient is apoaequorin, the scientific name for jellyfish, which one scientist said "has no known role in human memory, or that many experts believe supplements like this would most likely be digested in the stomach and never wind up anywhere near the brain.
"If apoaequorin is so great, why aren't jellyfish smarter?" Harvard Health editor Robert H. Shmerling, MD, quipped in a recent post.
Quincy has conducted an extensive national advertising campaign for Prevagen, including TV spots on national broadcast and cable networks such as CNN, Fox News, and NBC, featured charts depicting rapid and dramatic improvement in memory for users of the product.
In fact, the lawsuit alleged, the marketers relied on a study that failed to show that Prevagen works better than a placebo on any measure of cognitive function.
The federal court complaint alleged that the defendants enticed consumers to spend anywhere from $24 to $68 for bottles of 30 supplement pills by touting the product to improve memory and reduce memory problems associated with aging.
The complaint noted that the supplement is widely available at major retailers such as Amazon, CVS, the Vitamin Shoppe, and Walgreens, and is also sold directly on the defendants’ websites. Defendants’ product sales topped $165 million, according to the complaint.
“The marketing for Prevagen is a clear-cut fraud, from the label on the bottle to the ads airing across the country,” said then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman when the suit was filed in 2017.
“It’s particularly unacceptable that this company has targeted vulnerable citizens like seniors in its advertising for a product that costs more than a week’s groceries, but provides none of the health benefits that it claims,” he said.