Noted neurologist and Alzheimer's investigator Sid Gilman has parted ways with the University of Michigan, just days after he figured prominently in the largest insider trading case ever brought by the SEC.
A spokesperson for the university told Bloomberg that Gilman had resigned, following a statement a little more than a week ago that the university was reviewing Gilman's activities. The SEC complaint charged hedge fund manager Mathew Martoma with executing a $276 million insider coup back in 2008, after Gilman had tipped him off to the news that bapineuzumab had flopped in a Wyeth study. Gilman at that point had been consulting with Elan and Wyeth for 5 years and served as chairman of the safety monitoring committee, a perch which gave him inside knowledge that he passed on to Martoma, earning more than $100,000 for his insights.
Gilman wasn't charged alongside Martoma. Instead, the former chairman of the university's department of neurology and past president of the American Neurological Association, has taken a long, hard fall from the upper echelons of his profession. He also agreed to forfeit $186,781 he had earned from consulting with Elan ($ELN) and from his work with an expert-networking company.
Over the past two years the SEC has found that the life sciences industry has been rife with insider trading cases. With stock prices likely to soar or plunge on the progress of key drugs, a tip can be worth an overnight fortune for Wall Street players and company execs. And there's been a growing focus on expert-network firms, which provided investigators with rich hourly fees in exchange for connecting them to traders. If the widening web of investigations can take down one of the most prominent investigators in his field, there's no telling just how many of these relationships could be at the center of ongoing probes.
- here's the report from Bloomberg