Insider Trading Suspect Jumps to His Death

An executive accused of illegally profiting from inside knowledge of his company's promising new cancer drug jumped to his death from an airport parking garage in New Jersey. Zizhong Fan, manager of clinical programming at Seattle Genetics, is believed to have shared insider information on clinical trials involving the company's new treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma with his brother and other relatives, the Seattle Times reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which obtained a 13-count securities-fraud indictment against Fan and his brother last week, charges that the pair made some $800,000 from trades before the clinical trial results were released and the company's shares jumped 18%. Fan, who would have faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted, had been on his way to Seattle to surrender to authorities when he killed himself. (More Securities and Exchange Commission stories.)