NEW YORK: A former Pfizer Inc statistician was sentenced to nine months behind bars for making more than US$200,000 by trading on confidential information before a key announcement about the drugmaker’s Covid-19 treatment Paxlovid.

Amit Dagar, convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy after a one-week trial in January, was sentenced on Tuesday in a federal court in Manhattan by US District Judge Andrew L. Carter Jr.

He was charged in June 2023 with trading ahead of a November 2021 announcement that Paxlovid had reduced hospitalisations and deaths in high-risk patients by 89%, which sent the shares surging.

He had asked for a sentence of probation or home confinement.

The case is part of an effort by Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams to crack down on corporate crime including insider trading.

The charges were announced the same day as the case against a trio of investors accused of trading on secret information about the merger plans of Digital World Acquisition Corp, the blank check company that took Donald Trump’s social media startup public.

 - Bloomberg