Retired CEO of NBT Bancorp Inc. (NBTB) Offloads Shares, Plus Other Exciting Insider Trading

Executive at Battered Biopharmaceutical Company Purchases Shares

One member of Dynavax Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:DVAX)’s management team piled up some shares earlier this week. Robert Janssen, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Clinical Development, bought 6,000 shares on Tuesday at a price tag of $4.04 each. Following the recent purchase, Dr. Janssen currently owns an aggregate of 12,048 shares.

The shares of the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company have plunged by 83% in the past year. Dynavax Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:DVAX)’s shares took a serious hit in early-November after the FDA issued a Complete Response Letter for the company’s experimental hepatitis B vaccine, called Heplisav-B. One should know that the FDA issues CRLs to communicate the completion of a review cycle of an application and to request additional information for review and approval. Although the FDA did not require additional clinical trials and Heplisav appears to be approvable, Dynavax said its resources may not be sufficient to advance the Heplisav-B program on its own. Therefore, the vaccine’s revenue potential could possibly end up in the pockets of potential partners in exchange for upfront milestone payments or royalties. Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management reported owning 1.75 million shares of Dynavax Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:DVAX) through the round of 13F filings for the third quarter.

CEO of Clinical-Stage RNAi Company Keeps Buying Shares

After purchasing a 10,000-share block a little more than a week ago, the man in charge of RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp (NASDAQ:RXII) bought more shares this week. President and CEO Geert Cauwenbergh purchased an additional block of 10,000 shares on Wednesday at an average price of $0.70 per share. After the purchase, Dr. Cauwenbergh currently owns a total of 72,583 shares.

The shares of the clinical-stage RNAi company have plummeted by 76% in the past 12 months, so the spike in insider buying appears to be a natural occurrence. So-called RNAi therapies are designed to ‘silence’ the expression of a specific gene that may be over-expressed in a disease condition. Just recently, RXi Pharmaceuticals completed the acquisition of privately-held MirImmune, which develops next-generation immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer. The freshly-completed acquisition of MirImmune represents the first step into the field of cell-based therapies for RXi. Kevin Kotler’s Broadfin Capital was the equity holder of 316,010 shares of RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp (NASDAQ:RXII) on September 30.

On the final page we’ll shift our focus towards some noteworthy insider selling observed at two other companies.