This is an example of deplorables in action!
In all, four of Moderna's top executives netted a total of $30 million in stock transactions in the past few days, including the company's top legal officer, its top scientist and its chief financial officer, the SEC filings show.
Moderna's vaccine results have yet to be reviewed by outside medical experts and published in a medical journal, and some have questioned whether the company was too quick to publicize the trial data. Nonetheless, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease specialist, and others have called the results "quite promising."
Tal Zaks, Moderna's chief medical officer, was quoted in the company's press release Monday as stating that even at a very low dose the company's vaccine had been shown to be effective and that "these data substantiate our belief that [the company's vaccine] has the potential to prevent COVID-19 disease."
The following day, Zaks sold just over 125,000 shares of the company's stock for about $78 each.
Besides its own top executives' sales, the company also sold stock on Tuesday, offering millions of shares to investors at $76 each. Moderna raised more than $1.3 billion in the offering, which was managed by investment bankers at Morgan Stanley.
A Moderna spokesperson said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch the executives' stock sales were all pre-planned before the vaccine announcement and part of a company-approved process. The company declined to disclose any further details about its executives' stock-sales plans.