Shares of Cassava Sciences (NASDAQ: SAVA) were tanking Friday, down by almost 30% early in the session and still off by 11.6% as of 12:35 p.m. ET. The steep decline came after the company issued a public statement regarding an internal report prepared by the City University of New York (CUNY) that was leaked to the press.

On Thursday, the respected journal Science revealed that an anonymous source had given it a copy of CUNY's report. This report focused on the university's investigation into alleged data manipulation in research conducted by Cassava and a scientist at CUNY. Cassava's public response on Friday stated that the CUNY report did not make any findings of data manipulation.

The company also noted that short-selling activity in its stock soared by 40% before the CUNY report was leaked. Cassava pointed out in its public statement that a lawyer for some short-sellers was quoted in the Science article. However, the company acknowledged that the article "does not indicate what role, if any, short-sellers had in the leak."

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Source Fool.com