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Pharma researcher charged with theft of trade secrets  

By Brian Buntz | January 19, 2021

Image from Bill Oxford via Unsplash

A former director of medical and scientific affairs at Merck (NYSE:MRK) faces criminal charges in federal court in New Jersey for allegedly stealing and transmitting trade secrets.

Shafat A. Quadri has been released on $100,000 unsecured bond. He was most recently employed at AstraZeneca (NSDQ:AZN).

The single count of trade secret theft carries a maximum potential penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a fine as high as $250,000, or double the total financial gain or loss, according to Rachael A. Honig, acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.

The complaint describes Quadri’s former employer as “Company 1,” stating that the organization reached out to the FBI in Oct. 2019 to report suspicious activity regarding its sensitive intellectual property. Quadri had been employed at that company until Sept. 30, 2019.

The suit alleges that Quadri used his email account to send at least 12 sensitive documents to private email accounts. Some of those documents pertained to an immunotherapy drug.

Company 1 used a network data loss prevention tool to identify 106 documents that Quadri allegedly sent to private email addresses. Some of the documents were outside of Quadri’s area of specialty at the company.


Filed Under: Drug Discovery, Drug Discovery and Development
Tagged With: AstraZeneca plc, immunotherapy, intellectual property, Merck, trade secrets
 

About The Author

Brian Buntz

As the pharma and biotech editor at WTWH Media, Brian has almost two decades of experience in B2B media, with a focus on healthcare and technology. While he has long maintained a keen interest in AI, more recently Brian has made making data analysis a central focus, and is exploring tools ranging from NLP and clustering to predictive analytics.

Throughout his 18-year tenure, Brian has covered an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, medical devices, and drug discovery and development. Prior to WTWH, he held the title of content director at Informa, where he focused on topics such as connected devices, cybersecurity, AI and Industry 4.0. A dedicated decade at UBM saw Brian providing in-depth coverage of the medical device sector. Engage with Brian on LinkedIn or drop him an email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.

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