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Phillip Frost, a billionaire and investor in the health care sector, was one of 10 people and 10 companies associated with the Securities and Exchange Commission to participate in pumping and dump programs for a very long time. duration.
Opko Health Inc.
OPK -18.01%
, a pharmaceutical and diagnostic company that Frost founded and headed as president and chief executive officer, was also named in the SEC's complaint. Opko Health shares fell by 18% in an extremely busy Friday afternoon before being stopped.
Frost, Opko and others have been accused of making more than $ 27 million in sales between 2013 and 2018 by organizing major purchases and promoting actions, including misleading articles and manipulative transactions.
The plan left public investors "holding virtually worthless stocks," according to the SEC's lawsuit.
Related: The SEC charges several companies, individuals, microcap fraud systems, including Barry Honig
Frost, who is 80 years old and lives in Miami Beach, Florida, has been president of the generic drug manufacturer Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.
SUITS YOU, -1.15%
He was President and Chief Executive Officer of Ivax Corporation until 2006, when Teva acquired the company. Prior to that, he worked on the reformulation of an old asthma medicine as a best seller at Key Pharmaceuticals. which is now a subsidiary of Merck & Co. Inc.
MRK, + 0.42%
The billionaire of biotechnology from Florida also has a Miami Science Museum, the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science. The SEC complaint in particular notes that it "enjoys a reputation as a successful biotechnology investor".
Biotechnology also plays an important role in the SEC complaint. In 2010, Frost and others reportedly turned to a private biotechnology company, offering to take it publicly to fund research on a technology the company hoped to use in major drug markets.
The group merged the company with a publicly traded umbrella company and effectively took over the management of the company, but did not invest in the promised research and development, leading to its abandonment, the SEC said. In the meantime, according to the complaint, the group had not disclosed the existence and majority of the group's shares, and one of the group members published articles favorable to Frost's role with the company.
Related: Meet the perfect brand for a scam at the pump: the modern pensioner
According to an article by Seeking Alpha quoted by the SEC, this company was the microcapsule of BioZone Pharmaceuticals, now a subsidiary of Cocrystal Pharma Inc.
COCP, -14.44%
, which saw its shares fall 14.4% Friday.
Another company alleged to have used a pumping and dump system was a private company that developed cancer therapies and diagnostics. The entities owned and controlled by Frost and others, including Opko, the private company Southern Biotech Inc. and Frost Gamma Investment Trust, for which Frost is a trustee, were involved, according to the complaint. In subsequent filings, Frost and FGIT did not properly disclose the nature of their interest, the SEC said.
This company would have been MabVax Therapeutics
MBVX, -9.55%
, according to the other article by Seeking Alpha.
The project increased the company's shares from $ 1.91 to $ 4.30 and raised over $ 5.5 million. Another effort, using another Seeking Alpha article, has made more than $ 2.7 million, according to the SEC complaint. MabVax saw its shares fall from 9.6% to 45 cents Friday.
Investor in Florida Barry Honig, John Stetson, Michael Brauser, John R. O'Rourke III, Mark Groussman, Elliot Maza, Robert Ladd, Brian Keller, John H. Ford, Capital Alpha Anstalt, ATG Capital LLC, GRQ Consultants Inc. HS Contrarian Investments LLC, Grander Holdings Inc., Melechdavid Inc. and Stetson Capital Investments Inc. were also named in the SEC's complaint.
The SEC requests that defendants be obliged to abandon their "ill-gotten gains", with interest, as well as civil penalties, and that they be excluded from other bids for purchase. actions.
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