"We have also discovered that a Schering-Plough officer, Carrie Smith Cox, sold significant numbers of shares of Schering-Plough in the time between the end of the ENHANCE study and the release of the results on January 14, 2008," Congressmen Bart Stupak and John Dingell wrote in their latest letter to the companies today.
(Thank you Wall Street Journal, for writing, "The Web was buzzing about Cox’s stock sales last week; BrandweekNRX was the first to report on the sales.")
Congress is asking for "All records of all briefings to corporate officers of Schering-Plough or Merck relating to the ENHANCE trial. All records of stock sales by corporate officers of Schering-Plough or Merck corporate officers between April 2007 and January 2008.
The only thing missing from Congress' request is stock sales from Directors, Vice Presidents and Senior Vice Presidents in medical, marketing, and regulatory, who were responsible for Vytorin. Schering-Plough may claim they are not corporate officers, since they have not been elected to this position by the board of directors.
Congress may have to amend their request and ask specifically for:
"All records of stock sales by anyone with responsibility for Vytorin or the ENHANCE trial on a Manager, Director, Vice President or Senior Vice President level."
Since we're talking about stock options, Schering-Plough would have this information easily accessible, but won't turn it over to Congress unless asked . . .
Should several executives on these levels also have sold significant amounts of SGP shares, it would indicated an institutional knowledge about problems with the Vytorin trial and massive insider trading.
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