A Chicago-based medical oncologist has been charged with insider trading by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a December 20 press release issued by the US Department of Justice.
Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD, PhD, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist and associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, is alleged to have used confidential information to purchase shares of California-based biotechnology company Five Prime Therapeutics before it publicly announced positive results from a clinical trial of bemarituzumab, an experimental cancer drug.
Catenacci served as the lead investigator of the clinical trial that evaluated bemarituzumab. The drug, which earned Breakthrough Therapy designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this year, is designed to target fibroblast growth factor receptor 2b (FGFR2b), overexpressed in about 30% of patients with HER2-negative gastric cancer and other solid tumors.
Bemarituzumab is being positioned as a potential frontline therapy for advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer. A recent phase 2 trial found that adding bemarituzumab to chemotherapy in this patient population improved survival over chemotherapy alone.
According to the criminal information, filed on December 17 in US District Court in Chicago, the charges state that, in November 2020, Catenacci "used material, non-public information about the trial results to make more than $134,000 in illegal profits from the purchase and sale of securities in the company."
