Buffalo-area congressman indicted on insider trading charges

Manhattan federal prosecutors on Wednesday morning announced insider trading charges against Christopher Collins, a Buffalo-area Republican congressman.

The charges allege that Collins, a director and major shareholder in Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., an Australia-based pharmaceutical company, tipped his son to trade on inside information about a highly touted drug to treat multiple sclerosis.

Collins' son, Cameron, and other co-conspirators avoided $768,000 in losses by trading ahead of the announcement of a failed clinical trial for the drug, known as MIS416.

Collins did not trade his own shares, the charges said, because he was already under investigation by Office of Congressional Ethics for his activities to promote the company. 

The company’s stock dropped 92 percent when the failed trial was publicly announced, according to an indictment released Wednesday morning.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman has scheduled a noon news conference to announce the charges.