A biotech company's stock price rose after new clinical trial results were circulated prematurely at a conference currently being held in San Diego.
The Clinical Trials for Alzheimer's Disease (CTAD) conference scheduled Biogen to present results from a study of its experimental Alzheimer's drug aducanumab on Friday morning.
Reporters were asked to withhold coverage of the results until Biogen's presentation. CTAD's website states, "All research is embargoed until the date/time that it is shared at a CTAD presentation, symposia or poster session. After the abstract presentation, you may publish/write on the abstract content."
But reporters covering the conference say trial data were widely distributed to conference attendees ahead of time. An overview of the results was also publicly accessible on CTAD's website on Thursday.
In the study's abstract, Biogen reported "significant decreases in brain amyloid plaque burden" and "slowing of clinical decline" in the patients who received aducanumab. Biogen's stock price rose late Thursday as word of the study's positive results spread prematurely.
Adam Feuerstein, a senior columnist at financial news website TheStreet, says he was working on a story for Friday when he learned that the cat was already out of the bag. He says the conference bungled the release of these results.
"The law says you have to disclose that data equally to all investors at the same time," Feuerstein said. "What happens in cases like this is that data is selectively disclosed. So people who happen to be at the conference or have access to those data in some way are getting an edge."
The conference organizers did not respond to a request for comment.
