A former information technology executive at Mylan pleaded guilty on Friday, September 17, to insider trading for using tips from the drugmaker’s chief information officer to trade in its stock, generating US$4.27 million of illegal profit, authorities said.
Dayakar Mallu, 51, admitted to conspiring to commit securities fraud, and to an unrelated charge of helping prepare a false tax return, before US District Judge W. Scott Hardy in Pittsburgh.
Mylan is now known as Viatris after merging last November with Pfizer’s Upjohn off-patent drug business, which Pfizer spun off. The combined company’s headquarters remain in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb.
Authorities said that between October 2017 and July 2019, Mallu traded Mylan stock based on material nonpublic information about the company’s results, US Food and Drug Administration drug approvals, and the Upjohn merger.
Mallu, now a resident of Orlando, Florida, was previously vice president of global operations information technology at Mylan, and had been a friend and colleague of the chief information officer, court records show.
The tax return charge related to a computer programming company based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, that Mallu owned, prosecutors said.
Mallu could face 57 to 71 months in prison under recommended federal guidelines at his January 24, 2022, sentencing, according to a plea agreement with the US Department of Justice.
He also agreed to forfeit US$4.27 million and make restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, court records show. The US Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil charges.
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