The biotech CEO who promised to end “thou­sands of years of mor­phine and opi­ate ad­dic­tion” and al­leged­ly told in­vestors they could re­al­ize huge gains by in­vest­ing in his com­pa­ny — which he said was worth $1 bil­lion dol­lars be­fore it rapid­ly ran out of cash — has been con­vict­ed of fraud by a Boston ju­ry.

Frank Reynolds, CEO of Pixar­Bio and for­mer head of In­Vi­vo Ther­a­peu­tics, was found guilty of ly­ing to in­vestors to dri­ve up the stock price, Law360 re­port­ed. He was con­vict­ed on all counts, in­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ties fraud, ma­nip­u­la­tive trad­ing and ob­struc­tion of jus­tice.

Pros­e­cu­tors ac­cused Reynolds of false­ly telling in­vestors that Pixar­Bio had raised $30 mil­lion and was with­in two years of bring­ing a re­place­ment for opi­oid painkillers to mar­ket. Ken­neth Strom­s­land, the for­mer VP of in­vestor re­la­tions at Pixar­Bio, tes­ti­fied that Reynolds led in­vestors to be­lieve that the com­pa­ny was in talks to be bought by Pur­due Phar­ma, the mak­ers of Oxy­Con­tin.

Strom­s­land, along with M Jay Herod, a friend of Reynolds, pled guilty to fraud charges ear­li­er this year.

Reynolds’ de­fense at­tor­ney, David Ax­el­rod, ar­gued Reynolds had an “hon­est­ly held, sin­cere be­lief” that the com­pa­ny would suc­ceed.

Found­ed in 2013, Pixar­Bio re­verse merged its way on­to the pub­lic mar­ket in 2016, while Reynolds tout­ed his con­nec­tions to the fa­mous MIT pro­fes­sor Robert Langer. Bare­ly a year af­ter they an­nounced their stock was over­sub­scribed with an ex­pect­ed $30 mil­lion raised, the com­pa­ny ap­peared to be in sham­bles. Amid an SEC in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they re­duced staff from 27 to 10 and were forced to leave their $23,341 per-month Med­ford of­fice for a $3,003 of­fice in Salem, New Hamp­shire. The in­dict­ments came in April 2018.

The three be­gan trad­ing de­cep­tive­ly to raise the stock price in 2016, pros­e­cu­tors al­leged, and con­tin­ued in­to 2017.  They co­or­di­nat­ed moves and at times paid ar­ti­fi­cial­ly high stock prices in or­der to raise the com­pa­ny’s val­ue, the gov­ern­ment said.

An SEC com­plaint said the com­pa­ny raised $12.7 mil­lion from 211 in­vestors. Some of those in­vestors launched a class ac­tion suit against the com­pa­ny.

In ad­di­tion to in­vestors, Strom­s­land and the pros­e­cu­tor de­scribed Reynolds mis­lead­ing em­ploy­ees in some­times fan­ci­ful ways. Strom­s­land said Reynolds told peo­ple he was par­a­lyzed from a back in­jury and gave em­ploy­ees a signed pic­ture of the ceil­ing he stared up at for 7 years, ac­cord­ing to Law360. US at­tor­ney Leslie Wright said Reynolds lied about cur­ing his own paral­y­sis.

Amgen is the latest pharma company to appear on the radar of Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is investigating the way pharma companies are using subsidiaries in low- or zero-tax countries to lower their tax bills.

Like its peers Merck, AbbVie and Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyden notes how Amgen uses its Puerto Rico operations to consistently pay tax rates that are substantially lower than the U.S. corporate tax rate of 21%, with an effective tax rate of 10.7% in 2020 and 12.1% in 2021.

After controversially spinning out its talc liabilities and filing for bankruptcy in an attempt to settle 38,000 lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson is now changing up the formula for its baby powder products.

J&J is beginning the transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio, the pharma giant announced on Thursday — just months after a federal judge ruled in favor of its “Texas two-step” bankruptcy to settle allegations that its talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. An appeals court has since agreed to revisit that case.