Former Biogen Exec Settles Allegations

Biogen Idec Inc.’s former chief scientific officer, Nabil Hanna, agreed to pay $372,000 to settle allegations he used confidential information to profit on a stock trade, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.

The SEC alleged that Hanna, 61, bought shares of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. before the company disclosed in September 2003 that it would develop a potential cancer treatment with Aventis. He sold the stock the day after the announcement and made a $124,000 profit, the agency said.

Hanna, an immunologist, knew about the “blockbuster” potential of the treatment, called VEGF-Trap, because Regeneron had talked with Biogen about a possible joint venture, the SEC said in a news release.

The SEC is conducting a separate probe of trades by Biogen’s former general counsel, Thomas J. Bucknum, who sold shares Feb. 18. That is the day the company told regulators that a patient taking its Tysabri multiple sclerosis treatment had died.

Hanna, who resigned from Cambridge, Mass.-based Biogen in May amid the insider trading investigation, didn’t admit or deny wrongdoing. He agreed to be barred from working as an officer at any public company and to be subject to stiffer penalties if he violates securities laws in the future.

Hanna’s lawyer didn’t return a call, and Hanna couldn’t be reached by telephone at his home in Rancho Santa Fe.

Biogen’s shares fell 67 cents to $34.80 on Nasdaq.