In the morning of Nov. 10, 2020, Daniel V.T. Catenacci, director of the GI oncology program at the University of Chicago, did some trading, court documents say.
Catenacci bought 8,743 shares of Five Prime Therapeutics Inc., knowing that the company was about to release positive results from a phase II study of bemarituzumab, a monoclonal antibody for gastric cancer, civil and criminal complaints say.
A day later, Catenacci, who was the lead clinical investigator on the study, sold those shares for a profit of more than $134,000, court documents say.
As a result, Catenacci ended up with a double whammy of civil and criminal complaints:
On Dec. 20, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that the oncologist had entered a partial settlement of the civil charges, agreeing to pay a civil penalty on the proceeds from insider trading. SEC said the profit from the trading added up to $134,142. The amount of the penalty hasn’t been determined, the agency said. On the same day, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois filed a parallel Department of Justice complaint charging Catenacci with one count of securities fraud by insider trading. On Jan. 4, Catenacci pleaded not guilty to the criminal charge.
