'Con­tin­ue lay­ing gold­en eggs!': Phar­ma ex­ec, doc­tors charged by SEC for al­leged in­sid­er trad­ing around Alex­ion-Por­to­la deal

Af­ter re­al­iz­ing near­ly half a mil­lion dol­lars in prof­its, Stan­ley Ka­plan texted his friend in Russ­ian: “Let’s hope our gold­en goose will con­tin­ue lay­ing gold­en eggs!”

Through a chain of con­nec­tions, Ka­plan had al­leged­ly been tipped con­fi­den­tial in­for­ma­tion about Alex­ion’s de­ci­sion to make a ten­der of­fer to buy Por­to­la Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals be­fore the deal was an­nounced in May 2020.

Joseph Dupont, then a vice pres­i­dent at Alex­ion and part of the bio­phar­ma’s ac­qui­si­tions team, was the orig­i­na­tor of the tip, ac­cord­ing to Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion in­sid­er trad­ing charges filed Thurs­day in the US Dis­trict Court for the South­ern Dis­trict of New York.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER