Insider trading revealed

The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission has charged former Sangamo Therapeutics clinical research vice president, Winson Tang, with participating in an insider-trading scheme. According to a complaint naming Tang and several others filed in federal court for the Southern District of New York, Tang allegedly tipped off a close friend about a licensing agreement between Sangamo and Biogen. The friend then passed the information on to members of an insider-trading ring. That late 2013 tip generated $1.5 million in profits for ring members when the two biotechnology firms announced their deal in January 2014. Terms of that deal called for Biogen to pay Sangamo more than $300 million to use Sangamo’s zinc finger nuclease genome-editing technology to develop treatments for sickle cell disease and other inherited hemoglobin-related disorders. Earlier this year, Bioverativ, a spin-off of Biogen, and Sangamo said FDA had accepted their Investigational New Drug Application for BIVV003 for sickle cell disease. The SEC suit seeks disgorgement of profits and penalties from the traders. For Tang, who is not charged with profiting from the scheme, prosecutors want an order prohibiting him from acting in the future as an officer or director of a public company.