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To: scion who wrote (112663)3/29/2011 11:54:52 PM
From: Buckey  Respond to of 122087
 
I Often wondered how tempting that would be as much as assay labs techs temptation on mining results. 29 years ago I was ofetn in possession of material info on my company but I coukl never figure out if it was good or bad so I never traded it as I didnt even trade then. Funny thing is I was the numbers guy responsible for at least the revenue side of that number



To: scion who wrote (112663)3/30/2011 11:19:50 AM
From: scion  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 122087
 
'Insider' Is Charged at FDA

MARCH 30, 2011
By ALICIA MUNDY And BRENT KENDALL
online.wsj.com

WASHINGTON—A longtime chemist at the Food and Drug Administration was charged Tuesday with insider trading by federal authorities, who alleged he made as much as $3.6 million trading drug company stocks based on confidential drug-approval information.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against Cheng Yi Liang, 57, an FDA employee since 1996, alleging he illegally traded in advance of at least 27 different FDA announcements involving 19 publicly traded companies.

The Justice Department filed related criminal charges and also charged Mr. Liang's son, Andrew Liang, in the case. Both are residents of Gaithersburg, Md.

The charges stunned the FDA. Mr. Liang works in the division in charge of approving new drugs, the agency's most visible and sensitive role. The pharmaceutical industry has long worried about security in this area, given how much secret corporate information is shared with employees at the agency.

"This is the kind of stuff I lost sleep over," said former FDA commissioner David Kessler, because pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street depend on FDA officials never using their proprietary knowledge "to play the market."

The SEC and the Justice Department said the men traded shares dating back to 2006 of companies whose drugs were used for colon cancer, schizophrenia, insomnia, severe constipation, osteoarthritis and heart disease.

Some of the FDA announcements at issue involved delays in the approval process due to the drugs' safety or efficacy tests. Mr. Liang allegedly bought stock for profit before positive announcements, bet on shares falling after negatives ones and sold shares to avoid losses.

Mr. Liang traded stocks of smaller companies developing new drugs, rather than major corporations, to take advantage of the relatively larger swings in these firms' stocks, the SEC said. The SEC said he went to great lengths to conceal his trading—which was financed in part with a home-equity line of credit—using seven brokerage accounts that weren't in his name. One belonged to Mr. Liang's 84-year-old mother in China, the SEC alleged.

In the most profitable transaction, the Liangs allegedly traded ahead of a May 2009 announcement by Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. that its schizophrenia drug Fanapt had received FDA approval. They netted more than $1 million on the trades, government lawyers alleged.

Another of the companies whose stock he allegedly traded was Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc., a small biotechnology company from Cambridge, Mass., which was vying with two other companies to make a generic version of the blockbuster blood thinner Lovenox.

The FDA unexpectedly told the companies in November 2007 that they needed to do further testing, holding up the approval process. The SEC claimed Mr. Liang made $130,000 by trading shares a day before the news was made public, cutting Momenta's stock nearly in half.

When the drug was finally approved, in July 2010, Mr. Liang made another $85,000 buying shares three days ahead of the announcement, the SEC alleged.

Momenta's chief executive, Craig Wheeler, said the company had no comment, and hoped to soon review the SEC complaint.

SEC investigators don't believe Mr. Liang is part of a wider insider-trading ring, said a person familiar with the matter. But agency officials are checking to see if other FDA employees have been abusing market-moving information.

The FDA said Tuesday it is aware of the insider-trading charges. "The agency is cooperating fully with the authorities, and will review the situation and take any appropriate action," its written statement read.

Neither the Liangs nor their attorneys could be reached for comment.

The Justice Department said Mr. Liang's position at the FDA gave him access to the agency's password-protected tracking system used to manage drug applications and drug-safety issues. That allowed Mr. Liang to review documents as they passed through the FDA approval process.

Mr. Liang's last completed transaction in the alleged insider-trading scheme involved Clinical Data Inc., which received FDA approval in January for the antidepressant Viibryd.

According to court documents, officials with the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general's office installed software on Mr. Liang's work computer that collected screen shots showing how he accessed the tracking system to follow Viibryd matters, including a document recommending approval of the drug.

Over several days, Mr. Liang bought more than 46,000 shares that he sold for a $380,000 profit after the drug was approved, the government alleged.

—Jean Eaglesham contributed to this article.

Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@dowjones.com and Alicia Mundy at alicia.mundy@wsj.com

online.wsj.com



To: scion who wrote (112663)6/3/2011 1:29:16 PM
From: scion  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 122087
 
SEC CHARGES FDA CHEMIST WITH ADDITIONAL INSIDER TRADING

Litigation Release No. 21987 / June 2, 2011

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Cheng Yi Liang, et al., Civil Action No. 8:11-cv-00819-RWT (D. Md.)

SEC CHARGES FDA CHEMIST WITH ADDITIONAL INSIDER TRADING

On June 2, 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed an amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland (Greenbelt Division) in its insider trading action against Cheng Yi Liang, a chemist who worked at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The SEC’s amended complaint charges Liang with trading in advance of a 28th drug approval announcement and through an additional brokerage account in the name of a sixth nominee.

On March 29, 2011, the SEC filed a complaint in federal court in Maryland alleging that Liang illegally traded in advance of at least 27 public announcements about FDA drug approval decisions involving 19 publicly traded companies, garnering more than $3.6 million in illicit profits and avoided losses. Today’s amended complaint alleges that Liang traded in advance of a 28th announcement involving a 20th publicly-traded company, XenoPort, Inc.

As alleged in the amended complaint, Liang accessed a confidential FDA database that contained critical documents and information about the FDA’s review of Horizant, a drug developed by XenoPort to treat restless leg syndrome. Between January 6 and March 24, 2011, Liang accessed the confidential FDA database at least 52 times to monitor the status of the FDA’s review of Horizant. Then between February 22 and March 24, 2011, Liang purchased 43,000 shares of XenoPort in accounts in the name of three nominees: Hui Juan Chen, Zhongshan Chen, and Andrew Liang. On March 29, 2011, Liang was charged by the SEC and arrested by the criminal authorities in a parallel criminal investigation. One week later, on April 6, 2011, XenoPort announced that the FDA had approved Horizant, which caused XenoPort’s shares to rise 56% and resulted in imputed profits to Liang of over $126,000.

The amended complaint, in addition, alleges that Liang used an eighth brokerage account in the name of his 87-year-old father, Zhaozheng Liang, to trade beginning in January 2011 and in advance of the XenoPort and Clinical Data, Inc. announcements. The amended complaint also names Zhaozheng Liang as a relief defendant.

The SEC’s amended complaint alleges that Liang violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and seeks a permanent injunction against future violations, disgorgement of unlawful trading profits and losses avoided plus prejudgment interest, and a financial penalty. The SEC’s amended complaint names Liang’s wife Yi Zhuge and the account holders for the eight trading accounts Liang used – Liang’s mother Hui Juan Chen, his son Andrew Liang, his father Zhaozheng Liang, Shuhua Zhu, Zhongshan Chen, and Honami Toda – as relief defendants for the purpose of recovering ill-gotten funds to which they have no legitimate claim.

The SEC thanks the Department of Justice’s Criminal Fraud Section, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland for their ongoing assistance in this matter. The SEC’s investigation is continuing.

SEC Complaint
sec.gov

Chart: Tracking the Trades
sec.gov

sec.gov