Report: Are docs leaking study data?

NEW YORK, May 18 (UPI) -- U.S. doctor-patient privacy is one thing, but discretion may be falling by the wayside as doctors get advance drug-trial data before a big meeting.

According to an article published Friday in the Wall street Journal, the stock of key biotech companies has been moving dramatically up and down in advance of major medical conferences, casting suspicions on the doctors who attend the meetings.

The physicians get several months' advance notice of study results breathlessly awaited by the marketplace that show which companies appear to have potential blockbuster drugs in their pipelines and which potential products are falling flat. The doctors sign confidentiality agreements to keep the data secret.

As an example, market analysts point to the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, slated for June 1, which they say has been preceded by a buzz of stock activity, such as a slide of ImClone shares, fueling suspicion that news of disappointing study results for one of the firm's cancer treatments -- which was shared with some 24,000 doctors in advance -- was improperly leaked, the WSJ reported.

ImClone shares dropped more than 9 percent this week, while Regeneron stock fell nearly 15 percent and Genentech shares lost 3 percent, as the ASCO conference nears, the newspaper said. On the other hand, Onyx shares shot up 10 percent in advance of the forum.

"Oncology stocks consistently have shown unexplained volatility around the time ASCO releases data on embargo to its members," said Morgan Stanley analyst Steven Harr in the WSJ article. Harr said he was one of a number of analysts who asked ASCO to stop its advance release of the data to members, but the medical organization said it would "inconvenience" the doctors if it waited until the meeting to release the data.

ASCO did agree to "tweak" the way it shares the data, the report said. Doctors who trade on the early-release information could run afoul of securities laws, but if they merely share the data, the doctors may only be in violation if they know the recipient of the information will trade on it, WSJ said.