 |
当前位置：首页 >> 个人服务 >> 预览个人简历信息 提醒：任何一种简历保密设置，都不会影响您在线投递简历。 |
|
| 个人信息 |
| 姓 名： |
周译员 [编号]:264 |
性 别： |
男 |
|
| 擅长专业： |
医药 |
出生年月： |
1980/7/1 |
|
| 民 族： |
汉族 |
所在地区： |
上海 上海 |
|
| 文化程度： |
硕士 |
所学专业： |
药理学 |
|
| 毕业时间： |
39626 |
毕业学校： |
第二军医大学 |
|
| 第一外语： |
英语 |
等级水平： |
CET-6 |
|
|
| 口译等级： |
|
工作经历： |
3 年 |
|
|
| 翻译库信息 |
| 可翻译语种： |
英语 |
|
|
| 目前所在地： |
上海 上海 |
| 可提供服务类型： |
笔译 |
| 每周可提供服务时间： |
周一到周五晚上三小时时间，周末全部。 |
| 证书信息 |
| 证书名称： |
CET-6 |
|
| 获证时间： |
2005/12/1 |
|
| 获得分数： |
491 |
|
|
| 工作经历 |
| 工作时期： |
2008/12/1--2009/3/1 |
|
| 公司名称： |
71988部队 |
|
| 公司性质： |
其它 |
| 所属行业： |
武警/警察/消防/军人 |
| 所在部门： |
卫生队 |
|
| 职位： |
医师 |
| 自我评价： |
敬业 |
|
|
| 笔译案例信息 |
| 案例标题： |
Drug researchers leak secrets to Wall St. |
|
| 原文： |
By Luke Timmerman and David Heath Seattle Times staff reporters
Doctors testing new drugs are sworn to keep their research secret until drug companies announce the final results. But elite Wall Street firms — looking to make quick profits — have found a way to harvest these secrets:
They pay doctors to divulge the details early.
A Seattle Times investigation found at least 26 cases in which doctors have leaked confidential and critical details of their ongoing drug research to Wall Street firms.
The practice involves doctors at top research universities from UCLA to the University of Pennsylvania, and powerful financial firms including Citigroup Smith Barney, UBS and Wachovia Securities.
In 24 of the 26 cases, the firms issued reports to select clients with detailed information obtained from doctors involved in confidential studies. The reports advised clients whether to buy or sell a drug stock.
Thomas Newkirk
Trading stock based on secret information bought from medical researchers is illegal, say legal experts who were told of The Times' findings.
"That's a good way to go to jail," said lawyer Thomas Newkirk, former associate director of enforcement at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Whether they are paid or not, medical researchers who talk with Wall Street about their ongoing research violate confidentiality agreements they sign before drug companies allow the drug testing to begin.
Until now, the selling of drug secrets has been hidden from securities regulators and the public, but biotech and Wall Street insiders said the practice is widespread.
"Everybody does this.... It's now common practice," said the chief executive of California biotech company Valentis, Ben McGraw, a former Wall Street analyst.
Listen to interview excerpts: The practice of selling secrets
The practice of selling drug secrets, The Times found, is being driven by hedge funds, the largely unregulated investment pools that cater to the super-rich. Hedge funds can make money with aggressive strategies that exploit quick price swings in stocks, and the volatile biotech industry provides many such opportunities.
A single drug's prospects can determine whether a small biotech company's stock soars or plummets, so any inside information provides a potent investing edge.
Such information is so valuable that elite investors pay up to $1 million a year to firms known as matchmakers, which pair Wall Street firms with doctors involved in ongoing drug research. Gerson Lehrman Group, the largest matchmaker, claims to have 60,000 doctors available to speak to Wall Street, double the number from three years earlier.
How Wall Street gets the inside scoop on drug testing
Matchmakers typically pay doctors $300 to $500 an hour to talk to elite investors. Some doctors said they can make tens of thousands of dollars a year from such talks.
Drug-company executives say they know about the practice but can't crack down on the doctors they rely upon for conducting patient testing.
Ordinary investors are victimized when inside information is leaked to select investors. Those who know in advance whether a drug is going to succeed or fail can buy stock low or sell it high to those who don't know, making quick fortunes by taking advantage of unwitting investors.
Arthur Caplan
And there is a broader cost to society: Leaking details about ongoing research can introduce bias into drug trials and possibly halt development of potentially life-saving drugs, biotech executives said.
"It appalls me, I must say," said Christopher Henney, a Seattle biotech pioneer who co-founded Immunex, now part of Amgen. "It's absolutely outrageous that they [researchers] would allow themselves to be corrupted in that way."
"The practice is a moral cesspool," said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "It really just seems to me to be the last straw in the corporatization of American medicine."
Doctors who divulge
Elite investors gained when doctors on a drug trial dropped the word that the drug was failing.
Excitement was building in fall 2002 at Isis Pharmaceuticals, a 300 employee Carlsbad, Calif., company, as it wrapped up a study of Affinitak, an innovative drug to treat lung cancer.
Unknown to the company, however, analysts had started making calls to doctors testing the new drug. Despite confidentiality contracts, the doctors were talking.
By late November, Isis' stock price was plummeting on heavy trading; it lost 20 percent by early December.
A bombshell fell Dec. 6, and suddenly the drop made sense. Andrew Gitkin, an analyst at UBS, a big brokerage firm, issued a research report with a shocking revelation: Doctors on the Affinitak drug trial had talked to UBS and divulged that the drug was not working.
Gitkin's report sent Isis stock spiraling down even further.
Timeline
UBS inside report sparks sell-off of Isis stock
Later that day, a news report confirmed that word of Affinitak's failure had "spread across Wall Street's biotech trading floors" for more than a week. Gitkin said in an interview that he believed he "wasn't the only analyst or investor" who had called the doctors.
Analyst report on Isis
Read the UBS report [PDF] That would explain why investors were selling Isis shares, driving the price down. Investors who knew the trial results in advance could have shorted Isis stock — a way to make money when its price falls — and made a quick 30 percent profit.
Isis chief executive Stanley Crooke, an M.D. with a Ph.D. in pharmacology, was furious.
"We were very shocked that somebody would try to do an analysis like that, shocked that any investigators would talk to an analyst and give him impressions and lead him to specific conclusions," Crooke would say later.
Crooke complained to UBS. He also questioned the doctors testing his new drug, trying — without success — to find the leak, he said.
Three months later, Isis released its Affinitak results and Gitkin's information was proved correct — the drug was a dud.
Gitkin said he did nothing wrong. "I don't know who does and who doesn't sign confidentiality agreements. ... I would assume that if they signed a confidentiality agreement they wouldn't talk to me."
Sometimes, hedge funds and brokerage firms pay one well-informed doctor to be quizzed by investment managers in a conference call. But other times, their approach to gathering valuable secrets about drug trials is more sophisticated and wide-ranging.
Timeline
Analysts foretell Eyetech's fall
Recently, Citigroup Smith Barney penetrated a major study to see how an experimental drug fared against a just-approved drug for treating macular degeneration, an incurable eye disease and the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.
Analyst reports on Eyetech
First Albany, March 31 [PDF]
Smith Barney, May 1 [PDF]
Smith Barney, May 5 [PDF]
The brokerage talked to 26 eye doctors, but they weren't just any doctors. Twenty of the 26 had researched the experimental drug; 23 of the 26 had researched the other one, meaning that more than half had worked on both. The doctors were able to give Smith Barney valuable comparative information.
Nearly all agreed that the drug still being studied, a product called Lucentis from biotech powerhouse Genentech, would prove vastly superior to the drug that recently had gone on the market, Macugen, made by Eyetech, a smaller company.
But the doctors were more explicit than that. Based on its survey, Smith Barney predicted remarkable results: 97 percent of patients on Lucentis would have stable or improved vision, as measured by how many lines of an eye chart they could read. Smith Barney summarized those findings in a report to select customers May 5.
As it turned out, the numbers were almost exactly on the money. On May 23, not long after Smith Barney's report, Genentech announced results from its Lucentis study: 95 percent of patients had stable or improved vision — just as predicted by the doctors Smith Barney talked to.
The announcement battered Eyetech's stock, which lost nearly half of its value in a day. Any hedge fund or other investor who had acted on Smith Barney's research by betting against Eyetech would have made better than a 40 percent return in just three weeks.
Dr. Scott Pendergast, a lead researcher in the Macugen study who said he doesn't speak to investors, was shocked when told of the Smith Barney report.
"That's definitely inappropriate," Pendergast said. "They're getting information that was not publicly available."
The Seattle Times interviewed 15 of the lead doctors on the Macugen and Lucentis research, many of whom acknowledged accepting money to talk to Wall Street firms. None specifically recalled talking to Smith Barney, but they said they had talked to many investors during the time Eyetech's stock price was in a steep decline.
All 15 doctors insisted they didn't reveal confidential or valuable details.
"People will call and ask 'Do you think this drug is working?' I'm just being asked to give my gut feeling," said Dr. David Boyer, a Los Angeles ophthalmologist.
"They'll ask what I can't answer," said Dr. Richard Rosen in New York City, who said he talked on the phone or face to face with investment firms about twice a day for $300 to $500 an hour.
"They're looking for results of trials that aren't out yet," Rosen said. "I can't answer that. I can just answer from my personal experience in how patients seem to respond to certain therapies."
Even so, Rosen acknowledged his experience can be valuable. "If you treat 20 patients you can get some sense of where a trial is going," he said.
Some medical researchers say they refuse to talk to hedge funds or stock analysts because they know the aim is to get confidential information.
Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic involved in half a dozen ongoing research studies and chairman of a federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel making recommendations on new drugs, said he gets "zillions" of calls from investors who say they simply want to talk about a certain disease.
"As soon as I hear the pitch I know what's going on," Nissen said. "The impressions of somebody on the trial are relevant to whether the trial is likely to succeed."
More analyst reports
Deutsche Bank learns of early end to a trial, Nov. 13 [PDF]
Trial ends early, Nov. 21 [PDF]
Morgan Stanley hosts dinner with cardiologists [PDF]
Dr. Ron Garren, who runs a small hedge fund in Carmel, Calif., and works part time as a cancer doctor, knows this. He said he can score confidential details about ongoing drug research in his conversations with doctors.
"They really aren't supposed to talk because of confidentiality," Garren said. "But a lot of times it's a slip of a word here and there. You can generally tell from body language if a person running a trial likes the drug or doesn't. You can generally ferret out, if you're good, the safety issues."
One experienced research analyst at a major brokerage firm said he's studied "elicitation techniques" taught to FBI and CIA interrogators.
"We get them to talk about the weather, or the Mariners, then you pop in your one innocent question you want to know about," said the analyst, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used. "Then you switch back to whatever it was you were talking about before. When the doctor hangs up, he thinks he's had a nice conversation about the weather or the Mariners."
Hedge funds explode
A rapidly growing form of investment ramps up the pressure to gain inside information on drug research.
Powerful economic forces are driving the trend to pay for secret information. Years of a raging bull market were good to mutual funds. But when the good times on Wall Street ended in 2000, money began pouring into hedge funds in search of better returns.
Though barely a blip on Wall Street 15 years ago when they collectively managed less than $40 billion, hedge funds now manage close to $1 trillion — doubling in size in just the past five years, according to Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research.
Unlike mutual funds, hedge funds aren't regulated and can take big risks, such as buying a stock with borrowed money or shorting a stock, a way to profit when its price falls. Hedge funds aren't satisfied keeping pace with an up-and-down market. They expect to make profits even in bad times and have a powerful incentive to do so: Fund managers get to pocket 20 percent of their funds' profits.
With such big payoffs for fund managers, the number of new funds has exploded, intensifying competition.
"As soon as money gets involved, it attracts people, and people go to greater and greater lengths to get an edge on their competition," said Joe Edelman, portfolio manager of Perceptive Life Sciences Master Fund, a $600 million biotech hedge fund in New York.
The way to get an edge on Wall Street is with better information, Edelman said.
"If everybody has the same scoop, it's not a scoop," he said. "People will go to great lengths and throw a lot of money around to outdo the next person."
The need for scoops has driven Wall Street firms to pay medical researchers to divulge secrets, said David Miller, who digs up information for his Seattle-based newsletter Biotech Monthly, but refuses to pay doctors.
"It's becoming standard practice" for hedge funds and brokerage firms to pay doctors, Miller said. "A couple years ago, this is something you would have seen as unusual. Today it's not."
Miller said the practice taints the biotech industry, allowing some with inside information to get rich at the expense of individual investors.
"What this has to do with is people who are so greedy in the market that they are willing to break all the rules to make money," Miller said.
Hedge funds have become some of the most active traders on Wall Street, accounting for as much as half of the trading volume in the New York Stock Exchange, according to Credit Suisse First Boston. Brokerage houses now scramble to woo hedge funds and their massive trading business. Not only do these funds buy and sell enormous amounts of stock, they do more complicated trades that are lucrative for brokerages, such as shorting stock.
One way brokerage houses attract the trading business of hedge funds is by offering them valuable research they can't get elsewhere, said Paul Latta, research director for the brokerage firm McAdams Wright Ragen in Seattle.
Even the best research analysts at brokerage houses agree it's difficult to keep up with the information that hedge funds are able to collect. Many hedge-fund managers are doctors themselves, some from the same elite medical schools as the doctors they are calling.
Quynh Pham, with Delafield Hambrecht in Seattle, was ranked by Forbes magazine this May as one of the top 10 research analysts in the country. Yet Pham, a microbiologist with an MBA, said when it comes to gathering information, "I really can't hold a candle to the hedge funds. They're able to do things that are unethical."
Delafield Hambrecht makes it a policy not to pay doctors for information, Pham said. But she talks to hedge-fund managers who do it all the time, she said, citing a recent example involving Seattle-based Cell Therapeutics.
Research on Cell Therapeutics' experimental lung-cancer drug was nearing completion early this year. Dr. Corey Langer, an oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, was in charge of testing, which included many patients in Eastern Europe. In the months leading up to the results being released, Langer was "hounded" by calls from the Wall Street firms seeking information, he said.
Read the pitch
E-mail sent to Dr. Corey Langer by matchmaker firm Gerson Lehrman [PDF]
Gerson Lehrman's template for an invitation to consult [PDF]
Through the firm Gerson Lehrman, Langer began charging $500 an hour to answer their questions. "I decided I'd rather get paid for giving my time," he said.
When he talked to elite investors, Langer said, he told them he couldn't divulge results of the study before the company announced them in March because he had signed a confidentiality agreement.
But he did share one critical insight with the investors who paid. Earlier, Cell Therapeutics had announced promising news that patients on the study were living longer. But during calls, Langer said, he cautioned investors that this early result might not be due to the drug, but rather to patients in Eastern Europe not being as sick as originally thought.
Word spread quickly. In Seattle, Pham at Delafield Hambrecht got calls from hedge-fund managers to see if she had dug up anything on the Cell Therapeutics study. One hedge-fund manager told her he already had called 20 medical centers in Eastern Europe, Pham said.
In the end, Langer's warning was right. On March 7, Cell Therapeutics announced its drug failed to prolong lives. Its stock plunged 48 percent that day. Any hedge fund shorting the stock after talking to Langer would have scored big.
Langer said he didn't know what his Wall Street contacts did with his information. "They don't tell me, and frankly I don't want to know," he said.
Enter the middleman
A new industry rounds up influential doctors who'll talk to investors — for a fee.
Hedge funds and mutual funds don't have to track down doctors on their own. There is now an industry built around paying influential doctors — referred to as "thought leaders" — to talk to them.
The pioneer in this field is Mark Gerson, who co-founded Gerson Lehrman Group in 1998 when he was 29 and attending Yale Law School. By then, he had already written a book on neoconservatism and was the subject of a flattering George Will column about Gerson's brief experience teaching at an inner-city Catholic high school.
Gerson used his networking skills to start Gerson Lehrman's "Council of Advisors" and now says its numbers have climbed to 60,000 physicians. Advisers agree to talk to hedge funds and mutual funds for an hourly fee, usually around $300 to $500 an hour.
Some doctors charge more. Dr. Celestia Higano, an oncologist at the University of Washington, said she raised her fee to $1,000 an hour to discourage investors from calling. After that, Gerson Lehrman sent her assistant an e-mail, urging that she lower her rate.
"At this rate Dr. Higano would become a reserved advisor, and therefore would be used more sparingly since her rate is above $500/hr," the e-mail said.
Gerson told The Times he charges investors a basic rate of $60,000 for six months of access to the firm's doctors. But hedge funds pay Gerson Lehrman up to $1 million a year for its most premium service, he said.
Brokerage firms also serve as matchmakers for their best clients by setting up conference calls with medical researchers. Typically, brokerage firms invite 10 to 40 hedge-fund or mutual-fund clients to participate in these calls, said Fariba Ghodsian, an analyst at a hedge fund in Los Angeles. Small investors don't have access.
Listen to interview excerpts:
Gerson on confidentiality
Gerson on reputation
In an interview, Gerson said his firm reminds doctors to honor their confidentiality contracts. He said he has never heard of doctors leaking confidential information through his service. Gerson said he does not believe they would do so because the doctors and his clients want to protect their reputations.
"Nobody that we've ever met wants to succeed financially in a way that would not honor their reputation," he said.
Tactics defended
Some involved say they're doing nothing wrong and are, in fact, performing a useful service to advance "promising therapies."
Defenders of the practice contend that most conversations with medical researchers are not efforts to ferret out secrets about clinical trials. Hedge funds and other investors said they often are collecting information on how doctors will use drugs in the market.
Albert Sebag, CEO of Clinical Advisors in New York, another firm that hooks up doctors and Wall Street firms, said physicians don't have any inside information from the companies.
"They just put patients on the study. They don't know what the patients are necessarily getting. The data is typically analyzed by a third party," Sebag said.
Many studies are "blinded," meaning that patients and in some cases doctors don't know who is getting the experimental drugs or something else, such as a placebo.
But hedge-fund managers said it often is possible to find out from doctors how a study is progressing, even when it is "blinded." That's because drugs can have obvious side effects that patients receiving a placebo won't get.
ImClone's Erbitux for colon cancer, for example, causes rashes. During ongoing studies, said Garren, the hedge-fund manager, he took advantage of that, calling cancer physicians who had experience with the drug.
Garren said he paid many of the physicians to talk and asked the same question: How many patients with rashes had their tumors shrink?
After talking to doctors at a few medical centers that enrolled the most patients in the study, he came away believing the drug would be a hit. However, Garren said he didn't act on the information until after the Erbitux results were publicly known.
Sometimes the Wall Street firms can hit the jackpot, getting details from a doctor who is not "blinded" at all and has access to complete safety data.
That happened in February, when clients of the brokerage firm Fulcrum Global Partners were invited on a conference call with two doctors involved in research for Encysive Pharmaceuticals, a small Houston biotech.
Timeline
Investors get an early scoop on Encysive
One of the doctors, Harold Palevsky of the University of Pennsylvania, sat on the study's data-safety-monitoring board, a group meant to protect patients. Board members aren't "blinded" and get complete safety data while a study is in progress, because their job is to shut down a study if patients start to suffer from dangerous side effects.
Analyst reports on Encysive
Wachovia, Jan. 27 [PDF]
Fulcrum, Feb. 10 [PDF]
Fulcrum, Feb. 14 [PDF]
Members of data-safety-monitoring boards are sworn to secrecy to protect the integrity of the research. Yet, according to notes of the call later released by a Fulcrum analyst, Palevsky offered investors new and valuable information.
Encysive was testing a drug called Thelin for pulmonary hypertension, a rare and potentially fatal disorder of the blood vessels in the lungs. Earlier studies raised concerns that Thelin might be linked to serious bleeding or that it could damage the liver.
But, according to the analyst's notes, Palevsky assured investors that "the overall incidence of major bleeding events is rather low" across several Thelin trials.
Five days later, Feb. 14, Encysive announced the study had succeeded. Patients on the drug had no serious bleeding episodes.
That day, Encysive's stock surged 13 percent on the busiest trading volume in its history. Fulcrum analyst Patrick Flanigan boasted in a report that the results "are consistent with statements expressed by our physician consultants on a conference call we hosted last week."
Uzi Rosha, compliance director at Fulcrum, said the firm did nothing wrong.
"It was the doctors who had agreements with the company," he said. "It was their responsibility to make sure the conference call didn't contradict their confidentiality agreement."
Palevsky said he didn't reveal anything confidential, even though Fulcrum's report said Palevsky talked about information that had not yet been published.
"I am not responsible for what they say," Palevsky said "I spoke about data which had previously been published. Period."
Critics say drug-safety monitors such as Palevsky, with access to patient results, shouldn't talk to anyone, let alone Wall Street, about the research.
Palevsky defended his decision to talk to Fulcrum: "Why should I have not?"
Because talking about what you know as a safety monitor, said Penn bioethicist Caplan, is "about as big a no-no as you're going to get."
Breaking the law?
Courts have ruled that analysts can't coax someone to divulge company secrets.
Wall Street analysts argue they're doing nothing wrong. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that because analysts don't owe allegiance to the companies they research, they are free to gather valuable information and pass it on to their customers. Analysts also are free to collect tidbits of data that, when pieced together, may amount to valuable information not available to the public.
However, the court also has ruled that analysts can't coax someone to divulge company secrets, which it called "misappropriating" nonpublic information.
John Coffee, an insider-trading expert and law professor at Columbia University, said that it is clearly illegal to trade stock based on information obtained by paying doctors to leak confidential material about research they are doing for drug companies. Paying 20 doctors to answer the same question about the same drug trial is not the same as collecting tidbits of data, Coffee said.
Misappropriating company secrets violates federal securities laws. And the practice of selling secrets is illegal for all parties involved, including doctors, hedge funds and research analysts, legal experts say.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, told of The Times' findings, said it had no comment.
Newkirk, who left his post as the SEC's associate enforcement director for a private law practice late last year, said he had not known about medical researchers selling confidential information to investors until The Seattle Times told him about it.
He knew of no SEC investigation of the practice. However, he said the examples uncovered by The Times were the kind of insider-trading cases he would have pursued at the SEC and the kind of cases the agency would pursue now if it knew about them.
Newkirk said the SEC should investigate the practice of selling drug secrets for a simple reason:
"Because people ought to know better. People in the securities industry ought to know better than to do things like that. Doctors who've accepted confidentiality agreements — they are the kind of educated people who ought to keep their word."
Luke Timmerman: 206-515-5644 or ltimmerman@seattletimes.com
David Heath: 206-464-2136 or dheath@seattletimes.com
Note: This article has been revised from the original version to reflect information that appeared in a published clarification in the newspaper on Sept. 11, 2005. Here is that clarification:
An Aug. 7 article reported that Dr. Ron Garren, who runs a hedge fund in Carmel, Calif., admits he pays doctors in an effort to get confidential details about ongoing drug research. Garren's statements were apparently misunderstood. He discussed the practice of hedge funds -- including one for which he formerly worked -- paying doctors, including some involved in ongoing clinical trials, as consultants. But Garren says the firm he owns and operates now, Biotech Insight Management LLC, does not do so.
The Aug. 7 article reported that The Times found at least 26 cases in which drug researchers involved in clinical trials leaked confidential details of ongoing research to Wall Street firms. The total is accurate because Garren was not among the 26.
|
|
| 译文： |
药物研究人员向华尔街投资人泄漏商业机密
西雅图时报记者卢客•蒂默尔曼、大卫•希斯
试验新药的医生们发誓保守研究的秘密直到药物公司宣布最终结果。但是众多华尔街精英公司——寻找迅速赚取的利润——找到一条获取这些试验机密的途径。
他们收买医生以便较早的获得试验细节。
西雅图时报的调查发现至少有26个案例涉及医生给华尔街公司泄漏他们正在进行的药物研究的机密关键性试验资料。
该行为涉及到从加州大学洛杉矶分校到宾夕法尼亚大学等顶级研究大学的医生，以及强大的金融公司包括花旗美邦、瑞士联合银行、瓦乔维亚证券等．
其中24例，公司发行带有从参与机密研究的医生那里获取的详细信息报告进行客户选择。这些报告建议客户是否购入或出售一支药物股票。获悉时报发现的法律专家称，以从医疗研究人员有偿获取秘密信息进行股票交易是非法的。
"这是个入狱的好办法，”前证券交易委员会(SEC)强制执行部副执行长、律师托马斯•尼科说。
无论他们付费与否，医疗研究人员与华尔街谈论他们正在进行的研究违反他们在制药公司允许药物实验开始之前签署的保密协议。
到目前为止，出售药物秘密仍隐藏在证券监管者和公众之外，但是生物科技和华尔街内部知情人士称该行为是普遍存在的。
“每个人都这样做，在现在是一种普遍行为，”前华尔街分析师、加利福尼亚生物科技公司Valentis的总裁本•麦格罗说。
时报发现出售药物秘密的行为是由对冲基金操控的，此基金是一种迎合超级富豪的大型未加控制的投资平台。对冲基金以进攻性策略操控股票市场价格迅速波动而盈利，不稳定的生物技术公司提供了许多这样的机会。
单个药物的前景能决定一家小型生物技术公司的股票是否上扬抑或下跌，于是任何内部消息提供了一个潜在投资优势。
这样的消息是非常有价值的以至精英投资者每年支付给中介公司达100万美元，这些公司撮合华尔街公司和进行药物研究的医生。最大的中介机构美国格理集团宣称有6万名医生可与华尔街对话，是三年前数目的两倍。
华尔街是如何在药物试验中获取内部机密的呢？
一般的，中介支付医生每小时300到500美元去跟精英投资者交谈，一些医生称他们每年从类似的谈话中获取数万美元。
制药公司执行管理人员说他们知道有关行为但不能处罚依赖他们进行患者试验的医生。
当内部消息被透露给选择的投资人，普通投资人将成为受害者。那些事先知道药物是否成功或失败的投资人能在股票价格低时购入或在高价格时抛出股票而在那些还不知道这些内情的一般投资人还蒙在鼓里，凭借对不知情投资人的优势赚取快速财富。
生物技术公司主管称存在广泛的社会代价：目前研究的资料外泄将给药物试验中带入歧视并可能停止发展可能救命的药物。
“这令我震惊，我必须说，”现在是Amgen一部分的Immunex的共同创立者、西雅图生物科技先驱克里斯多佛•希利说，“这绝对是极不道德的，他们（研究人员）让自己这样堕落。”
“这种行为是道德沦丧，”宾夕法尼亚大学生物伦理学中心主任亚瑟•卡普兰说，“对我而言这似乎正是美国医疗公司化不可触摸的低限。”
泄漏内情的医生
精英投资人从参与药物试验的医生透露的只言片语中获取药物失败的消息。
2002秋天喜讯在lsis制药公司传开了，因为有关一种治疗肺癌新药Affinitak研究完成的消息，这是位于加州卡尔斯巴德的一家有300个职员的公司。
然而公司对此一无所知，分析师已经开始打电话给进行试验新药的医生。尽管有保密条约，医生们还是谈论着。
直到11月下旬，lsis的股票价格在重大交易上下跌；到12月初已经下跌20％。
12月6日的震荡下跌,以及突然下降背后隐含着重大意义。一家大型经纪公司UBS的分析师安德鲁•吉特金发表的研究报告披露惊人消息:Affinitak药物试验中的医生透露给UBS称该药疗效不佳。
吉特金的报告进一步加剧了lsis股票价格暴跌。
当天晚些时候，一则报道证实Affinitak失败的消息“早在一周前就已经传遍华尔街生物科技交易圈”。 吉特金在采访中称他相信自己“不是唯一分析师或投资人”向医生打电话。
这可解释为什么投资人会抛出Isis的股份，打压股票价格。投资人事先知道试验结果将减少持有Isis股票——一种当它的价格下跌时赚钱的方式——获取快速30％的利润。
Isis 首席执行官斯坦利•克鲁柯，拥有药理学博士的医学博士，异常愤怒
克鲁柯晚些时候说：“我们感到非常震惊，某些人尝试做那样的分析，任何研究者都能跟一个分析师谈论并给他留有一种印象导致分析师到特定的结论，”。
克鲁柯控告UBS。他也调查了参见试验新药的医生，尝试发现漏洞但没有成功，他称。
三个月后，Isis公布了Affinitak的结果，吉特金的消息被证实是正确的——药物没有预期的效果。
吉特金说他没有任何错。“我不知道谁签署或谁没有签署保密协议―――我猜测假如他们签署了保密协议他们可能不会跟我交谈的。”
有时，对冲基金和经纪公司支付给消息灵通医生交由会议电话中投资经理人提问。但是其他时间，他们获取有价值药物试验秘密的途径更隐秘和范围广泛的。
最近，花旗美邦刺探一项主要研究以观察一种实验性药物是如何优于一个刚批准治疗黄斑变性的药物，该病是一种难治的眼病和老年人致盲的主要原因。
经纪人与26位眼科医生交谈，但是他们不是其他普通医生。其中的20位在进行该项实验性药物研究。医生能提供美邦公司有价值的可比较性信息。
几乎所以医生同意药物仍在进行研究，来自生物技术能源室基因技术公司名为Lucentis的产品，将证实比目前市场上由一家小型公司眼科技生产的药物Macugen有巨大的优势，。
但是医生更明确的承诺。根据这项调查，美邦公司预测惊人的结果：97％的患者使用Lucentis将稳定或改善视力，通过他们能读出多少视力表行数评测。在一份报告中美邦公司总结这些发现在5月5号选择客户。
报告披露后，钱上的数目几乎是准确的。在5月23日，也就是在美邦报告后不久，基因科技公司宣布Lucentis研究结果：95％的患者视力稳定或改善——如同美邦公司通过与医生交谈所预测一样。
该声明使眼科技公司股票下跌，一天中几乎失去市值的一般左右。任何对冲基金或其他投资者按照美邦公司研究报告行事下注眼科技下跌将在短短3周内获取超过40％的回报。
一位黄斑研究中的学科带头人Scott Pendergast医生称自己从来没有对投资者交谈，当他被告知美邦公司的报告时，感到非常震惊。
“这绝对是不适当的，”Scott Pendergast说，“他们获取的是不能从公开途径得到的信息。”
西雅图时报采访了在黄斑和Lucentis研究中的15位领先医生，其中大多数承认从与华尔街公司谈话中收取佣金。与美邦公司交谈没有任何特比之处，但是他们称自己曾经在眼科技公司股票价格急剧下跌时跟许多投资人谈过话。
所有15位医生坚持认为他们没有透露机密或有价值的详情。
一位洛杉矶眼科医生David Boyer医生称，投资人会致电询问‘你认为这个药物有作用吗？’等类似问题，通常也只能告诉他们自己的直觉。
“他们问了我所不能回答的问题，”纽约的Richard Rosen医生说，他说一般是在电话中或面对面与投资公司以每小时300到500美元价格一天交谈两次。
“他们极力寻找试验的结果，当然这些是不能外泄的，”Rosen说，“我不能回答这个问题。我只能说从我个人的经验上患者似乎对治疗有多大反应。”
Rosen甚至承认他的经验是有价值的。“假如你治疗20位患者你能得到一些试验起效的感觉”
一些医疗研究人员称他们拒绝和对冲基金或股票分析师谈话因为他们知道其目的就是要获取机密信息。
联邦食品和药品管理局负责起草新药推荐小组主席、正参加六项进行中研究的克利夫兰临床心脏病学家S teven Nissen医生称，他自己接到“数量惊人”的投资者电话称只是简单的想谈谈某种疾病。
“我一听到这种问题我就知道接下来将发生什么，”Nissen说，“临床试验中一些患者的印象与试验是否成功密切相关。”
经营一家位于加州Carmel的小型对冲基金、并且兼职癌症医师的Ron Garren医生了解这方面的情况。他称在与医生的交谈中他能评判有关正进行的药物研究的机密详情。
Garren称，因为保密原则医生真的不愿意交谈，但是许多情况下随时可能说漏一些机密细细节。一般你能从肢体语言中区别出某位参与试验的医生对该药满意与否。如果你很在行，一般能搜找到可靠的结果。
曾是一家主要经纪公司的研究分析师称，他学过教给FBI和CIA审讯人员的“推导方法”
“我们与医生聊天气或水手，接着你突然提出你想了解的你一个无关紧要的问题，”分析师说，根据其要求这里不使用其姓名，“接着你切换回你先前谈论的无论什么话题。当医生结束谈话时，他认为自己进行了一次有关天气或海员的很好交谈。
对冲基金急剧扩张
一个迅速增长的投资公司施加了获取药物研究内部信息的压力
强大的经济力量驱动购买秘密信息的潮流。对共同基金而言，多年的非凡牛市是件好事。但是当2000年华尔街好景不再时，热钱涌入对冲基金寻求更高回报。
尽管15年前才出现在华尔街，当时他们共同管理不到400亿美元，而现在对冲基金接近1万亿美元——根据芝加哥的对冲基金研究，仅在最近五年规模扩大一倍，。
与共同基金不同，对冲基金不受监管并有很高的风险，例如通过借贷购入股票或抛空股票，抛空一种在股票价格下跌时获利的炒股方法。对冲基金不满足于和上下起伏的市场保持同步。他们希望盈利甚至在股票下跌的坏时机并有强大的刺激去这样做：基金管理者可获得20％的基金盈利
因为基金管理者获得如此丰厚的回报，众多新的对冲基金如雨后春笋般涌现出来，使竞争日趋激烈。
“一旦资金介入，它即可吸引人们的目光，人越来越多使竞争日趋白日化。”Joe Edelman说，他时纽约一家有六亿美元生物技术对冲基金——Perceptive Life Sciences Master Fund的经理助理。
Edelman称如何在华尔街得到优势在于更好的消息
“每个人都有的独家新闻，这就不是一个独家新闻，”他说，“人们将不遗余力的寻找并投入大量资金到下一个透露消息者。
对于独家消息的需求驱使华尔街公司收买医疗研究者泄漏秘密，David Miller称每月他为西雅图时事通讯生物科技公司挖掘信息，但是拒绝给医生付费。
Miller 称对冲基金和经纪公司给医生付费“这几乎成标准行为”。数年前，这是看来是不寻常的事情，而今是再普遍不过了。
Miller称该行为使生物科技公司蒙羞，因为允许一些知道内部消息人士以牺牲个人投资者获取不当之利。
Miller称这是那些在市场上过于贪婪的人为了赚钱而宁愿破坏所有的规定进行的勾当。
根据瑞士信贷第一波士顿的说法，对冲基金正成为华尔街最活跃交易商，占纽约股票交易所50％的交易总量。目前证券商争相拉拢对冲基金和他们的巨大交易生意。不仅这些基金买卖大量股票，他们还进行对经纪公司有利的更为负复杂的交易操作，例如抛空股票。
西雅图McAdamsWrightRagen经纪公司研究主任Paul Latta称证券商吸引对冲基金交易生意的一条途径就是提供他们有价值的研究，而这些是对冲基金本身不能从别处获得的。
甚至在证券所最好的研究分析师也同意跟上对冲基金有能力收集的信息是困难的。许多对冲基金经理本身就是医生，他们与其中一些电话咨询的医生出之同一个精英医学院 。
西雅图Delafield Hambrecht公司分析师Quynh Pham，被福布斯杂志评为五月份美国10大研究分析师之一。然而一位有MBA学位的微生物学家Pham称当开始收集信息的时候，“我真的不能对对冲基金的行为视而不见，他们能做出不道德的事情来。
Pham称Delafield Hambrech公司制定政策不允许给医生付费获得信息。但是她跟成天这样做的对冲基金经理们谈，引用了涉及西雅图细胞治疗公司的最近事例。
细胞治疗公司实验性肺癌药物研究是在今年早些时候接近完成的。一位费城福克斯詹士癌症中心的肿瘤专家Corey Langer医生负责该项试验，试验招募了许多东欧患者。在结果公布前几个月，Langer称自己被华尔街公司的电话所“围追”寻求药物信息。
通过格理公司中介，Langer开始以每小时500美元价格回答投资人的问题。他称自己决定从付出时间中获得报酬。
Langer称当他跟精英投资人交谈时告诉投资人，因为签署了保密协定他不能在三月份公司宣布有关研究结果前泄漏机密。
但他的确与付费的投资人分享了一个重要的观点。较早时，细胞治疗公司宣布有希望的消息称研究中的患者活的更长。但是在电话谈话中，Langer提醒投资人这个早期结果也许不是药物的缘故，而是由于东欧患者病情没有开始认为的那样严重。
消息迅速传开后。Pham在西雅图 Delafield Hambrecht接到来自对冲基金的经理们的电话了解她是否挖掘到任何有关细胞治疗公司研究的事情。一个对冲基金经理告诉她已给东欧的20个医疗中打过电话咨询过。
最终结果是Langer的警告是正确的。在三月七号，细胞治疗公司宣布该药无法延长生命。它的股票下挫达48％。与Langer谈话后任何抛售该股票的对冲基金将很赚一笔。
Langer称他不知道华尔街能从沟通中获取什么有用信息。他说：“他们不会告诉我，坦白的讲，我也不想知道，”
中间人
一个全新产业汇集了有影响力的医生，投资人付费即可与之交谈
对冲基金和共同基金大可不必追寻自己需要的医师。现在兴起一个产业专门支付有影响力的医生——指的是“思想领袖”——跟基金交流。
该领域的先驱是Mark Gerson，他在1998年共同发起成立Gerson Lehrman公司，年仅29岁，其时还在耶鲁法学院进修。此时，他已经写完一本关于新保守主义的著作并且有关Gerson在市中心天主教中学教学的简单经历成为广受欢迎的George Will专栏的主题。
Gerson曾运用他的网络化技能组建Gerson Lehrman公司的“顾问委员会”，现在宣称医生人数达到6万之多。顾问们同意以小时计费与对冲基金和共同基金谈话，一般是每小时300－500美元。
一些医生开价更高。华盛顿大学的肿瘤专家Celestia Higano医生称，她提高自己的谈话费达每小时1000美元足使电话咨询的投资人望而却步。之后，Gerson Lehrman公司给她的助手发送一份电子邮件，敦促其降低她的谈话费用。
该电子邮件称，在这个价位上，Higano医生将成为一位保守的顾问，因此她将很少被请求交谈因为价格超过每小时500美元。
Gerson告诉西雅图时报他给投资人的基本价位是6万美元可有权使用公司的医生六个月时间。但是对冲基金要得到一年的最优质服务就得付给Gerson Lehrman公司达100万美元。
一家位于洛杉矶的对冲基金分析师Fariba Ghodsian称，经纪公司作为他们最佳客户的中介通过和医疗研究人员举行电话会议。通常的例子，经纪公司邀请10到40家对冲基金或共同基金客户参与这些电话会议。小型投资人没权参与。
在一次采访中Gerson说他的公司提醒顾问医生们履行他们的保密协议。他说自己从没有听说过在他的服务中有哪位医生泄漏机密信息。Gerson说他也不相信他们会那样做因为医生和他的客户都想保护他们的名誉。
他说：“我们从来没有碰到过任何人以这种方式赚取大钱而不顾及自己的名誉”。
辩护策略
其中一些人士称他们没有做错任何事情，并且事实上进行了一次推动“有希望的治疗” 的有益服务
该行为辩护者争辩说大多数与医疗研究人员交谈者目的不是搜寻关于临床试验的秘密。对冲基金和其他投资人称他们通常收集的信息是有关医生如何使用市场上已有的药物。
连接医生和华尔街的另一家公司是纽约的临床顾问公司，其首席执行官Albert Sebag称医生不提供任何有关试验公司的内部消息。
Sebag说：“他们只是在患者上付诸试验。他们不知道患者必然得到什么。资料通常由第三方分析”。
大多数实验是设盲的，意味着患者和在某种程度上医生也不知道哪个患者接受实验性药物或其他药物，例如安慰剂。
但是对冲基金经理们说经常可能从医生发现研究进展如何，即使是设盲的时候。那是因为药物有明显的副作用而接受安慰剂的患者则没有这些副作用。
例如ImClone公司治疗结肠癌药物Erbitux可引发红疹。Garren称，在研究进行中对冲基金经理利用这个特征电话咨询试验过该药的肿瘤医生。
Garren称付费给许多医生交谈并问同样的问题：有多少患红疹的患者肿瘤缩小了？
在与研究中招募了许多患者的多家医疗中心医生交谈后，他得出结论相信该药将成为一个热点。然而，Garren称他直到在Erbitux结果公布之后才按照信息操作。
有时，从根本不设盲和有权接触全部可靠资料的医生那里获取详情，华尔街公司可获取暴利。
那是发生在二月份的事情，经纪公司法尔克鲁姆全球合伙人公司（纽约一家股票评级公司）的客户被邀请和参加Encysive制药公司一项研究的两位医生共同参与一个电话会议，Encysive制药公司是休斯顿一家小型生物科技公司。
其中一位医生，宾夕法尼亚州大学的Harold Palevsky，是研究的数据安全监督委员会成员之一，该委员会宗旨是保护患者。委员会成员是不设盲的并且在研究还在进行时可看到全部的可靠资料，这是因为他们的工作任务是一旦有患者开始出现危险的付作用时叫停研究。
资料安全检测委员会成员宣誓保守秘密以保护研究的完整性，根据后来批露的由Fulcrum的分析师提供的电话记录，Palevsky提供给投资人新的有价值的信息。
Encysive试验过一个叫Thelin的治疗肺动脉高压（一种罕见并有潜在致死性肺部血管疾病）药物。早期的研究提高了对它的关注，Thelin也许与严重的出血或其可致肝损害有关。
但是，根据分析师的记录，Palevsky保证投资人称多项Thelin临床试验的“主要流行事件的总发病率是相当的低”。
五天后，2月14号，Encysive宣布药物研究成功。使用受试药物患者没有发生严重出血事件。
就在那一天，Encysive的股票比其历史上最繁忙交易量飙升13％。Fulcrum公司的分析师Patrick Flanigan在一篇报道中自夸该结果“符合上周在我们举行的一次电话会议上医生顾问表达的声明“
Fulcrum公司执法部主任Uzi Rosha说公司没有任何过错。
“正是那些与公司有保密协议的医生，”他说，“确保电话会议不违反他们的保密协议是他们应尽的责任。”
Palevsky称他没有透露任何机密消息，即使Fulcrum的报道说Fulcrum提及的那些也还没有公布的有关信息。
“我不必为他们所说的话负责，”Palevsky说，“我所说是先前已经阶段性的公布的数据。”
批评者称药物安全检测员例如Palevsky，可接触到患者结果，就不应再跟任何人谈及有关研究，至少是华尔街。
Palevsky为自己跟Fulcrum公司谈话的决定辩护时称：“为什么我不可以呢？
美国宾夕法尼亚州生物伦理学家卡普兰称，因为谈及有关你作为安全监测员所了解的机密，是“你要告诉外界你所知道的事不是件儿戏小事, 或许是让你惹祸的大事. ＂（借鉴下）
违法了吗？
法院裁定分析师不可以唆使某人泄漏公司机密
华尔街分析师争辩称他们没有任何错。美国最高法院在1983年颁布的法令认为分析师不必对所研究的公司付之忠诚，他们可自由的收集有价值信息并交给他们的客户。分析师可自由收集资料的珍闻，当凑合起来也许可形成没有对外公开过的有价值信息。
然而，法院也裁定分析师不许诱使某人泄漏公司机密，也就是所谓 的“侵占”非公共信息。
一位哥伦比亚大学内部交易专家和法律教授John Coffee称，由通过收买医生泄漏有关他们为药物公司进行研究的机密材料而获取的信息进行股票交易是明显违法的。John Coffee说有偿询问20位医生有关同一种药物试验的同一个问题和收集资料的珍闻是不同的。
法律专家称，侵占公司秘密违反了联邦证券法。并且对于所有参与方，出售秘密的行为是违法，包括医生，对冲基金和研究分析师，。
证券交易委员会被告之西雅图时报的发现后，没有发表评论。
Newkirk 离开他的证券交易委员会强力执行部付执行长职位后在去年年底干起了私人法律行当，他称直到西雅图时报告诉他有关这些情况他才知道医学研究人员给投资人出售机密信息。
他知道证券交易委员会没有调查该行为。然而，他称西雅图时报发现的事例是一种内部交易案件他将谋求证券交易委员会的关注，并且假如现在委员会掌握了这些案件是会追查的。
Newkirk称证券交易委员会将调查出卖药物秘密的行为出于很简单的理由：“因为人们应该知道更多。证券界人士应该更好了解这类事情而不是做类似的事情。医生接受保密协议——他们是一类受过良好教育的人应该信守诺言。
联系作者：
Luke Timmerman: 206-515-5644 or ltimmerman@seattletimes.com
David Heath: 206-464-2136 or dheath@seattletimes.com
注：本文修改了原版本以反映在2005年9月11日报纸刊登的澄清信息. 这里是说明:
8月7日报道一篇文章中Ron Garren医生，他管理一家位于加州Carmel的对冲基金，承认他曾经支付医生获得有关正在进行的药物研究的机密详情。Garren的声明似乎被误解了。他讨论对冲基金的行为——包括他以前曾经工作的一家公司——收买医生，包括一些参与临床试验的医生，作为顾问。但是Garren称他现在的公司，即Biotech Insight Management LLC公司并没有这样的行为（有偿支付医生获取机密药物研究资料）。
8月7日报道一篇文章中西雅图时报发现至少26个案例，参与临床试验的药物研究人员泄漏正在进行研究的机密详情给华尔街公司。总数（26例）是准确的因为Garren并不在其列。 |
|
|
|
|
