So you punched “SAVA” into your brokerage app and got… nothing. Or maybe some odd little chart that just stops dead back in March. I did the exact same thing a while ago, figured I’d fat-fingered the letters, and typed it again. Same result.
Turns out I wasn’t losing it. SAVA basically doesn’t exist anymore — at least not by that name.
If you followed this one, you already know it was never a boring stock. And if you’re new to the whole saga, buckle up a little, because the story behind sava stock is honestly one of the messier, more human dramas the small-cap biotech world has cooked up in years.
First things first — where did the ticker go?
Cassava Sciences, the company that used to trade as SAVA, rebranded. On March 11, 2026 it started trading as Filana Therapeutics on the Nasdaq under a brand-new ticker: FLNA. Same company, same Austin, Texas address, new name, new symbol.
So if your app shows FLNA and you’re confused — that’s it. That’s your old SAVA. The shares didn’t vanish, they just got a fresh coat of paint and a different sticker.
Now… why would a company do that? Usually a rebrand like this is about distance. Putting some room between the “now” and a “before” that people can’t stop talking about. And Cassava had a very loud “before.”
Okay, but what was Cassava Sciences actually doing?
Here’s the short version. Cassava was a clinical-stage biotech — meaning it had no approved product and basically no revenue, just a drug it was testing and a dream. That drug was called simufilam, an oral pill aimed at Alzheimer’s disease.
The pitch was genuinely exciting. Instead of clearing out brain plaque like most Alzheimer’s drugs try to do, simufilam was supposed to stabilize a protein called filamin A. Different mechanism, fresh idea. For a while, a lot of smart people believed it might actually work.
And the stock went nuts. Back in the summer of 2021, SAVA closed as high as around $135 a share. People made life-changing money. Message boards were on fire. It had that meme-stock energy layered right on top of real, hopeful science.
But there was always a shadow over it.
The part where it got ugly
Almost from the start, skeptics — including short sellers with money betting against the company — argued the underlying data looked off. They raised questions about images in research papers, filed complaints with regulators, the whole thing. Cassava pushed back hard and denied any wrongdoing.
Then the investigations came. Regulators dug in. The SEC ended up bringing charges tied to how some earlier results had been described, and the company settled that. For years, if you owned this thing, you were basically holding a coin flip strapped to a lie-detector test. Exhausting.
The crash that ended the dream
The real gut-punch landed when the big Phase 3 clinical trials — the make-or-break studies that decide whether a drug is real or not — didn’t work. The main Alzheimer’s study, ReThink-ALZ, missed its goals. The program got shut down.
That’s the ballgame for a company like this. Alzheimer’s was the whole story, and the story just… ended. The stock, which had already bled out from those 2021 highs, cratered into penny-stock territory.
If you check today, FLNA (the old sava stock) has been floating somewhere around a dollar, with a market cap under $60 million. For a company once valued in the billions, that’s a brutal thing to look at.
So how does the rebrand fit in?
By late 2025 and into early 2026, the news kept coming, and some of it was actually mixed rather than all bad. The Department of Justice closed its investigation into the company in early 2026. A shareholder class-action lawsuit got settled. So a few of those long-hanging legal clouds finally cleared.
And instead of packing it in, management decided to pivot. That’s where Filana Therapeutics comes from — the name even nods to that filamin A protein.
What they’re chasing now
The new focus isn’t Alzheimer’s. It’s a rare condition called TSC-related epilepsy — seizures linked to Tuberous Sclerosis Complex. The idea is that the same drug, working on the same protein, might help calm seizures in patients who don’t respond to existing treatments.
It’s not a smooth road, though. Late in 2025 the FDA put the planned epilepsy trial on a full clinical hold, asking for more preclinical data before anything could move forward. So this new chapter is still very much unwritten.
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Should you actually care about this stock?
Real talk — I’m not here to tell you to buy or sell anything. I’m a writer, not your financial advisor, and nothing here is investment advice. Please don’t throw rent money at a sub-dollar biotech just because a blog post made it sound dramatic.
What I’ll say is this: a stock like FLNA is basically a bet on a single, unproven idea. If the epilepsy angle pans out, early believers could do very well. If it flames out the way the Alzheimer’s trial did, the downside is… most of it. This isn’t a steady dividend stock you tuck away for 20 years. It’s a lottery ticket wearing a lab coat.
If you’re genuinely thinking about it, read the actual filings, not just Reddit threads. Check the latest earnings. And size any position like you’re fully prepared to lose it, because with names like this, you honestly might.
My honest take
I’ve watched a lot of hype stocks come and go, and Cassava sticks with me because so much of it was human. Real patients desperate for an Alzheimer’s breakthrough. Real investors who believed. Real doubters who turned out to have a point. It wasn’t just numbers on a screen — there were people’s hopes wrapped up in it, on every side.
The rebrand to Filana feels like a company trying to survive by starting over, and honestly, I get it. Whether it works is a completely different question. I’m quietly rooting for the science to help somebody, and staying skeptical about the stock. Both can be true at once.
Wrapping up
The whole SAVA-to-FLNA thing is a good reminder that a ticker is just a label — the real story is always the people, the science, and whether the thing actually works. Cassava chased a huge dream, stumbled hard, and is now trying to write a second act as Filana Therapeutics.
Maybe it works out. Maybe it doesn’t. But if you landed here just trying to figure out why your old ticker vanished, now you know: it didn’t die, it changed its name. Keep your eyes open, do your own digging, and treat anything trading near a buck with the caution it deserves.
FAQs
Is SAVA stock still trading?
Not under that ticker. Cassava Sciences became Filana Therapeutics and moved to the symbol FLNA on March 11, 2026. If you owned SAVA, you now own FLNA — same shares, new name.
Why did Cassava Sciences change its name?
The company rebranded to Filana Therapeutics to reflect its new focus on the filamin A protein and TSC-related epilepsy, after its Alzheimer’s program failed. A fresh identity also helps put a little distance between the company and its rough, controversy-heavy past.
What happened to the Alzheimer’s drug simufilam?
The big Phase 3 Alzheimer’s trials didn’t hit their targets, so that program was discontinued. The company is now testing the same drug for a different condition — epilepsy tied to Tuberous Sclerosis Complex.
How much is the stock worth now?
It’s been trading around a dollar in mid-2026, with a market cap under $60 million — a long way down from its 2021 peak near $135. Prices move constantly, so pull up a live quote before assuming anything.
Is it a good buy?
That’s not something anyone can promise you, and this isn’t financial advice. It’s a high-risk, speculative micro-cap riding on one unproven drug program. If you’re curious, do real homework and never risk more than you can afford to lose.
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