A for­mer phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny ex­ec­u­tive and his cousin were ar­rest­ed Thurs­day morn­ing for an in­sid­er trad­ing scheme based on a Covid-re­lat­ed con­tract.

A DOJ an­nounce­ment de­tailed the charges to­day, ac­cus­ing the pair of “mul­ti­ple counts of se­cu­ri­ties fraud and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit both wire fraud and se­cu­ri­ties fraud in con­nec­tion with a scheme to com­mit in­sid­er trad­ing,” ac­cord­ing to the US At­tor­ney’s Of­fice for New York’s South­ern Dis­trict. The pair had al­leged­ly made more than $1.2 mil­lion in prof­it from trad­ing Ko­dak shares with knowl­edge of a fed­er­al con­tract.

Ac­cord­ing to the in­dict­ment filed in fed­er­al court Thurs­day, An­drew Stiles used his po­si­tion as VP of gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives and con­tract com­pli­ance at Phlow to gain ac­cess to non­pub­lic in­for­ma­tion about the gov­ern­ment fund­ing East­man Ko­dak — the pho­tog­ra­phy gi­ant — to pro­duce APIs and “key start­ing ma­te­ri­als” to pro­duce drugs in short­age as a re­sult of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic.

Ko­dak in 2020 re­ceived a $765 mil­lion fed­er­al loan un­der the De­fense Pro­duc­tion Act. Ko­dak chief Jim Con­ti­nen­za has al­so been ac­cused of break­ing New York se­cu­ri­ty laws af­ter al­leged­ly buy­ing tens of thou­sands of shares in an­tic­i­pa­tion of land­ing this gov­ern­ment loan from for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“While the fund­ing was be­ing ne­go­ti­at­ed, but be­fore the gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­est in fund­ing Ko­dak had been pub­licly an­nounced, based on ma­te­r­i­al, non­pub­lic in­for­ma­tion that An­drew Stiles had ob­tained by virtue of his em­ploy­ment at Phlow, An­drew Stiles pur­chased Ko­dak stock in breach of a du­ty of trust and con­fi­dence he owed to Phlow,” the in­dict­ment read — say­ing that Stiles made around $553,000 in prof­it sell­ing the shares af­ter the fund­ing was an­nounced.

An­drew al­so tipped off his cousin, Gray Stiles, to trade Ko­dak stock be­fore the pub­lic an­nounce­ment. Gray made around $990,000 in prof­it af­ter sell­ing his stocks.

Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials had signed a let­ter of in­ter­est for a $765 mil­lion loan to Ko­dak in a bid to jump­start do­mes­tic phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing. How­ev­er, the deal was halt­ed in Au­gust by the US In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Fi­nance Cor­po­ra­tion, say­ing in a tweet, “Re­cent al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing raise se­ri­ous con­cerns. We will not pro­ceed any fur­ther un­less these al­le­ga­tions are cleared.”

The in­sid­er trad­ing did not just in­volve Ko­dak. An­drew Stiles was work­ing for ac­count­ing and con­sult­ing firm BDO USA be­fore “and for a brief pe­ri­od, con­cur­rent­ly with, his em­ploy­ment at Phlow,” ac­cord­ing to the in­dict­ment, which had a con­sult­ing agree­ment in place with No­vavax. The in­dict­ment con­tin­ued that Stiles “as­sist­ed No­vavax’s ef­forts to pro­cure over $300 mil­lion in fund­ing to sup­port its ef­forts to de­vel­op a coro­n­avirus vac­cine.”

Ac­cord­ing to the in­dict­ment, Stiles bought No­vavax stock and sold it af­ter its fund­ing an­nounce­ment — mak­ing an­oth­er $45,000.

The DOJ al­so de­tailed texts be­tween the pair dur­ing June and Ju­ly 2020, when An­drew Stiles passed in­for­ma­tion about Ko­dak to Gray Stiles. One text ex­change from Ju­ly 9, when Ko­dak ap­plied for a $655 mil­lion loan, went as fol­lows:

GRAY:       Any up­date on the film we sent off a few weeks ago to get de­vel­oped

AN­DREW: 600+.  Maybe 2 weeks out

GRAY:        I can live with that ha­ha­ha

Be­tween June and Ju­ly 27, 2020, when Trump of­fi­cials first pub­li­cized the let­ter of in­tent with Ko­dak, An­drew Stiles bought 90,000 shares of Ko­dak stock, even up to the day be­fore the LOI “was sched­uled to be an­nounced,” ac­cord­ing to the DOJ. Gray Stiles pur­chased more than 30,000 shares — the ma­jor­i­ty of which were pur­chased the day be­fore the sched­uled an­nounce­ment.

On Ju­ly 27, 2020, An­drew texted Gray “Tmw,” which the DOJ said was in­di­cat­ing the ex­pect­ed date of the an­nounce­ment.

Gray’s re­sponse? “Hot damn.”

The pair then bought an­oth­er 10,000 shares of Ko­dak stock each — af­ter the text ex­change and be­fore the an­nounce­ment.

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

Boehringer Ingelheim reported human pharma sales of €18.5 billion on Wednesday, led by type 2 diabetes and heart failure drug Jardiance and pulmonary fibrosis med Ofev. Jardiance sales reached €5.8 billion, growing 39% year over year, while Ofev took in €3.2 billion, notching its own 20.6% annual jump.

However, Boehringer is also looking ahead with its pipeline, estimating “In the next seven years the company expects about 20 regulatory approvals in human pharma.”

The FDA today approved Emergent BioSolutions’ Narcan brand naloxone nasal spray for over-the-counter sales. The nod was expected and comes on the heels of a unanimous 19-0 advisory committee vote in favor of approval last month.

The move to OTC means the opioid overdose reversal agent will now be available on grocery, convenience and gas stations shelves, as well as potentially for purchase online.