ImClone Systems Inc said on Wednesday it was "pure coincidence" that its new chief executive bought $500,000 worth of company stock just days before the value of the shares soared on positive news about ImClone's cancer drug Erbitux.
John Johnson, a former senior executive of Johnson & Johnson, took the helm of ImClone on Aug. 27 after signing a 4-year employment agreement with the New York-based biotechnology company.
Johnson on Friday, Sept. 7, paid $500,000 for 13,609 shares of ImClone, at an average price of $36.74 each. The value of the shares soared 18 percent -- or $6.97 per share -- on Tuesday, Sept. 11, when ImClone reported that Erbitux prolonged the lives of lung cancer patients in a trial sponsored by its European partner Merck KGaA.
"This is 100 percent pure coincidence," ImClone general counsel Daniel O'Connor said in an interview, referring to arrival of the lung cancer data so soon after Johnson's purchase of his ImClone stake, and the speedy return on his investment.
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