What looks wrong
A pharmacy-shelf bottle that promises a sharper memory, backed by 'clinical' language and a lot of TV time.
What’s actually going on
The FTC and New York's attorney general spent years on Quincy Bioscience, maker of Prevagen. In 2024 a jury found the challenged memory and aging claims lacked competent scientific evidence. A federal judge then entered a nationwide injunction against eight marketing statements, including 'clinically shown to improve memory.' Quincy has disputed the ruling and pursued appeal.
Prevagen's pitch was simple enough for a cable-news break: a protein originally found in jellyfish, a brain, a better memory, 'clinically shown.' Dietary-supplement law lets a lot of structure/function talk onto a box. It does not let you invent a study's conclusion.
The FTC and New York sued Quincy Bioscience over those ads. After a 2024 jury trial, the jury found all eight challenged statements were made repeatedly, were not backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence, and had the capacity to deceive. It found two of them — including that Prevagen reduces memory problems associated with aging, 'clinically shown' — materially misleading under New York consumer law.
In December 2024 the district court confirmed a nationwide injunction: stop those eight statements wherever the FTC Act reaches. The court did not hand New York the money penalties it wanted. Quincy said the court misread the science and the business and moved to appeal. The vote on this page is about the claim that ran on TV, not about anyone who bought a bottle.
Source: FTC statement on the Prevagen ruling, 10 December 2024. We quote the public record. A settlement is not always an admission.