Pharma Insiders Are Raking in Money Despite No Guaranteed COVID-19 Vaccine Opinion
On March 2, Joseph Kim, Inovio Pharmaceuticals' CEO, was one of a handful of pharmaceutical executives who met with President Donald Trump at the White House. Although Inovio had never brought a vaccine to market, Kim boasted at that meeting about his company's ability to quickly develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
Inovio's stock skyrocketed—more than 220 percent—in the days after that meeting. That same week, Inovio's chief financial officer and chief science officer sold $400,000 worth of their combined company shares. Between March and July, top Inovio executives sold nearly $3.5 million in shares inflated by press releases portending hopes for vaccine development.
The executives who have already pocketed millions know that Inovio is not one of the front-runners in the vaccine race. It's not even technically a part of the Trump Administration's Operation Warp Speed, the massive initiative that has flooded a handful of drug corporations with billions in taxpayer funding for expedited development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
But Inovio is emblematic of a disturbing pattern in the race to develop a vaccine: Pharmaceutical companies issue press releases with (often unsubstantiated and overhyped) "news," which bring in financial market speculators, who make the stock values skyrocket, which is the signal for insiders and executives to cash out their shares.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/pharma-insiders-are-raking-in-money-despite-no-guaranteed-covid-19-vaccine-opinion/ar-BB194a8w?li=BBnb7Kz
= new reply since forum marked as read
