By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -A former executive at French drugmaker Ipsen was sentenced on Thursday to two months in a U.S. prison for illegally trading on inside information he learned about his company’s plans to acquire cancer drug developer Epizyme in 2022.
Dishant Gupta, Ipsen’s former director of data strategy and operations, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston after pleading guilty in October to engaging in securities fraud in order to earn more than $260,000 through insider trading.
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Gupta to one year in prison, while defense lawyers had pushed for a non-custodial sentence. Gupta must also pay a $20,000 fine and forfeit the $260,000, prosecutors said.
Jeffrey Lichtman, Gupta’s lawyer, said he was pleased that the sentence reflected the “very complicated and difficult life Mr. Gupta had.”
Prosecutors said that during a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in March 2022, an Ipsen executive asked Gupta to help him put together materials related to a potential acquisition of a cancer drug and an unidentified drug company’s assets.
Days later, Gupta met with Ipsen executives to discuss possible acquisitions in the oncology market, prosecutors said. By April 7, 2022, Gupta knew the cancer drug and assets Ipsen wanted to acquire belonged to Cambridge-based biotech Epizyme, the maker of the cancer medication Tazverik, prosecutors said.
That day, he began buying Epizyme shares in his wife’s brokerage account, according to court documents. Prosecutors said he bought more in the days that followed as the companies discussed a potential outright acquisition of Epizyme.
Ipsen announced its $247 million acquisition of Epizyme on June 27, 2022. Gupta then sold all of his Epizyme shares, netting him a profit of more than $262,000, prosecutors said.
“The defendant’s crime is a form of corruption,” prosecutors wrote in court papers ahead of Thursday’s sentencing. “He took advantage of the trust that his employer, and co-workers, placed in him to try and make money.”
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in BostonEditing by Marguerita Choy and Diane Craft)
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