Ex-Genen­tech sci­en­tist sen­tenced to six months in prison for steal­ing trade se­crets

Al­most four years af­ter Genen­tech first pub­licly ac­cused a for­mer top sci­en­tist of steal­ing trade se­crets, she’s been sen­tenced to six months in prison.

Xan­the Lam and her hus­band, Allen Lam, were both hand­ed the same sen­tence of six months’ im­pris­on­ment and $10,000 in fines. Their dead­line for vol­un­tary sur­ren­der will be next April, as they aren’t cur­rent­ly in cus­tody.

A 30-year vet­er­an at the biotech, Xan­the Lam was work­ing full-time as a prin­ci­pal sci­en­tist when Racho Jor­danov and Rose Lin, the CEO and COO of Tai­wan’s JHL Biotech, ap­proached her for in­sid­er in­for­ma­tion about the Roche sub­sidiary’s block­buster can­cer drugs. JHL was look­ing to de­vel­op biosim­i­lars to those drugs, and Lam’s se­nior role gave her ac­cess to a trove of con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments and files that she then turned over to JHL.

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