Indian-American ex-Pfizer employee convicted of insider trading on COVID-19 medicine trial

A 44-year-old Indian-American former Pfizer employee has been convicted for insider trading by a federal court docket in New York. Amit Dagar was convicted for his scheme to reap illicit income by trading on details about the outcomes of a COVID-19 medicine’s medical trials by the pharmaceutical big.

Following a two-week trial, Dagar, who’s from Hillsborough in New Jersey, was convicted of one depend of securities fraud and one depend of conspiracy to commit securities fraud final week, the Department of Justice stated in an announcement.

According to court docket paperwork, in November 2021, Dagar participated in an insider trading scheme to reap illicit income from choices trading based mostly on inside details about the outcomes of medical trials of Paxlovid, a medicine used to deal with COVID-19.

At that point, he was an employee of Pfizer and assisted in managing the information evaluation in particular medical drug trials.

On November 4, 2021, Dagar discovered {that a} Pfizer trial of Paxlovid, a medicine designed to deal with delicate to extreme COVID-19 an infection, had produced optimistic outcomes.

The outcomes have been confidential and meant to stay so till Pfizer publicised them the subsequent day.

Later that very same day, whereas the medical trial outcomes remained confidential, Dagar bought short-dated, out-of-the-money Pfizer name choices that expired days and weeks later.

Federal prosecutors stated that Dagar additionally tipped off an in depth pal, who bought related name choices.

The following day, Pfizer publicly launched the outcomes of its Paxlovid examine earlier than the market opening, and its inventory value elevated considerably, opening — and finally closing — greater than 10 per cent greater than the day prior to this’s closing value.

In the next weeks, Dagar offered his Pfizer name choices for income of greater than USD 270,000, federal prosecutors alleged.

“As the jury’s swift verdict exhibits, the proof at trial was overwhelming that Amit Dagar stole details about Paxlovid from his employer, Pfizer, and used that unlawful edge to revenue within the inventory market,” stated US Attorney Damian Williams.

“Combating the corruption of our monetary markets continues to be a high precedence of this workplace,” he added.

A conviction in securities fraud carries a most sentence of 20 years in jail, whereas that in conspiracy to commit securities fraud carries a most sentence of 5 years in jail.