The recent conviction of Ontrak Inc. CEO Terren Peizer for insider trading was conspicuous on two counts, including that it was the first time such a conviction had been obtained solely for trading conducted under a government-approved insider trading policy. More worrisome for industry, generally, is the case is another example of federal prosecutors’ ever-growing use of data and analytics to root out violations of SEC law. This is a trend that seems destined to grow with advances in artificial intelligence.
A woman who allegedly made nearly $300,000 last year on insider trading based on undisclosed information about a pending biopharma acquisition will have to disgorge her profits, along with interest, to the U.S. Treasury, but she will face no other penalties.
Three people have agreed to pay more than $170,000 to settle U.S. SEC insider trading charges related to UCB SA’s $1.9 billion acquisition of Zogenix Inc.
A quick jury verdict that a biopharma official was guilty of insider trading validated the U.S. SEC’s broader view of what constitutes such trading and could ignite more SEC “shadow trading” investigations and allegations. Following an eight-day trial before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and a little more than two hours of deliberation, a jury found April 5 that Matthew Panuwat violated national securities laws when he purchased short-term, out-of-the-money stock options in Incyte Corp. in 2016.
Life science companies and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have not always seen eye to eye on issues such as compulsory licensing, but industry might be supportive of a remark by U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai about companies that are provided with anticompetitive breathing by their host governments with noticeable anticompetitive effect.
Kevin Dills, who the U.S. SEC said secretly controlled Oncology Pharma Inc., consented to a final civil judgment in federal district court related to a fraudulent stock-selling scheme.
Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Renovacare Inc., has come to terms over allegations that the company engaged in what the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said was a pump-and-dump scheme designed to defraud the company’s investors. The initial SEC complaint dated May 28, 2021, alleges that Renovacare and company executives began making misleading statements to investors as far back as July 2017, making this yet another cautionary tale of duplicitousness in life science startups.
“The market stinks,” Brian Johnson, a partner and vice chair of Wilmerhale’s corporate practice group, told a U.S. SEC advisory committee Feb. 27, as he painted a gloomy picture of last year’s IPO landscape in the U.S. While the scene was a little brighter than in 2022, a few key indicators could be worrisome, especially the median offering size, which is predictive of the strength of the IPO market, Johnson said
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Feb. 14 that it may elevate the threshold for registration of venture capital (VC) funds from $10 million to $12 million, a move that would exempt at least a few med-tech VC funds from registration requirements.
The U.S. SEC denied a petition asking it to amend its 50-year-old no-admit/no-deny settlement policy that slaps a perpetual gag on parties that opt to resolve SEC allegations through settlements rather than in court.
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