A former Bank of New York Mellon Corp employee on Friday pleaded guilty to insider trading based on tips from a former Merck & Co Inc employee about potential pharmaceutical mergers.Federal prosecutors in New York said David Post, 41, a product manager at the bank, received nonpublic information from a former Rutgers Business School classmate about three companies: Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Ardea BioSciences and ViroPharma Inc.Prosecutors did not name the classmate, but on Oct. 14 they charged Zachary Zwerko, a former senior finance analyst with Merck, with passing inside tips about the same three stocks to a Rutgers classmate who worked at a bank.The connection was confirmed when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday amended a parallel civil complaint against Zwerko to include Post as a defendant.
Merck & Co., Inc. (Merck), is a global health care company that delivers health solutions through its prescription medicines, vaccines, biologic therapies, animal health, and consumer care products, which it markets directly and through its joint ventures. Shares of MRK traded higher by 1.73% or $0.98/share to $57.61. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $44.62 and as high as $61.33. On average, 9588070 shares of MRK exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 8554603.
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