CABINET/CONFLICT OF INTEREST/HHS/TRUMP PEOPLE/TOM PRICE: “Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price more than tripled his investment when he sold shares in a small biotechnology company developing a multiple sclerosis drug that might one day seek approval from Dr. Price’s agency, public disclosures show.
Dr. Price sold the shares of Australia-based Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd. in February for about $320,000, earning at least $225,000 on a $94,000 investment, according to an analysis of his disclosures to Congress and an ethics disclosure report filed on Monday. The sales were made to comply with the ethics agreement he signed when he became the health secretary.
Dr. Price told the Senate Finance Committee that he owned 461,238 shares of the stock, most of which were purchased at a discount last year after a member of the board of the company, Rep. Chris Collins (R., N.Y.), told him about a privileged sale of the stock. Dr. Price, at the time a Republican congressman from Georgia, was one of fewer than 20 U.S. investors who were invited last year to buy discounted shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics.”
-James V. Grimaldi, “Tom Price Tripled His Investment in Biomedical Firm With Sale of Stock,” The Wall Street Journal online, April 4, 2017