SEC Charges Three With Insider Trading

The Securities & Exchange Commission has charged a former executive of biotech firm Genta and two Genta stock owners with insider trading. According to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, Genta President Loretta M. Itri tipped off a friend about poor Phase III clinical trial results for ­Genasense, a melanoma treatment, a day before publicly releasing the results in 2009. The friend and an acquaintance sold their Genta shares for a gain of $139,000. Itri agreed to pay a $64,000 fine and will be barred from serving as an officer of a public firm for five years. The two others agreed to pay fines and return gains totaling $262,000. Genta filed for bankruptcy in 2012.