Two friends and biotech col­leagues with a pas­sion for in­sid­er in­fo - feds charge Mer­ri­mack staffer

Ac­cord­ing to the feds, Songjiang Wang and Schultz ‘Ja­son’ Chan were friends who shared a com­mon pas­sion for drug da­ta and in­sid­er trad­ing.

On Tues­day, though, Wang was ar­rest­ed on charges that he and Chan had been swap­ping in­sid­er in­fo on their two com­pa­nies, Mer­ri­mack Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals $MACK and Ake­bia $AK­BA, both based in Cam­bridge, MA.

Chan was charged last June with in­sid­er trad­ing by the SEC, which out­lined a scheme in which he tipped off his wife and an un­named friend — Wang, who had loaned Chan $80,000 — about some pos­i­tive da­ta that was about to be re­port­ed by Ake­bia. They al­leged­ly made a $288,000 prof­it on that deal, which hap­pened just days af­ter Chan start­ed work­ing at Ake­bia as di­rec­tor of bio­sta­tis­tics.

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