Physicians are a key client group for many advisors, but one Connecticut doctor, says the Securities and Exchange Commission, decided to illegally conduct his own equity and options trading on a biotechnology pharmaceutical company's stock.
The SEC on Thursday charged Dr. Edward Kosinski, a cardiologist from Weston, Connecticut, with trading the stock of Regado Biosciences in advance of two negative announcements about a heart drug, REG-1, that it was developing and for which Kosinski was the principal investigator in the final clinical trials.
Separately, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut announced criminal charges against Kosinski.
The story begins in 2013, when Kosinski bought shares of Regado Biosciences (then trading under the ticker RGDO; following a merger last year, Regado changed its name to Tobira Therapeutics Inc., ticker TBRA).
Kosinski bought the shares despite having signed a confidential disclosure agreement as a principal investigator for the drug trial under which, the SEC claims, he agreed to "hold in confidence" and "not use, disclose or exploit . . . proprietary Information for [his] own benefit or the benefit of any other person or entity."
