Federal prosecutors found a former Pfizer employee guilty of insider trading on Thursday for purchasing stock options in November 2021, shortly before the company announced clinical trial results for its coronavirus antiviral drug paxlobid. announced that it had been received.
A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Amit Duggar, 44, of Hillsboro, New Jersey, on one count of securities fraud, prosecutors said.
Prosecutor's argument Duggar was trading and tipping his friends. It was November 4, 2021, the day before the pharmaceutical company announced that paxlobid had performed well in clinical trials.
U.S. Attorney Damien Williams said the sentence was a warning to “insider traders who are tempted by the possibility of easy money.”
Duggar's attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission's parallel civil lawsuit against Mr. Duggar and his friend Atul Biwapurkar, Mr. Duggar was the senior director of the statistical program for the Paxrobid drug trial.
Biwapurkar pleaded guilty to securities fraud in October.
The crime carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, but any sentence would likely be much less, and a judge would decide the sentence based on several factors.
