The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged three health care company employees and four others in a New Jersey-based insider trading ring of various high school friends generating $1.7 million in illegal profits and kickbacks by trading in advance of 11 public announcements involving mergers, a drug approval application, and quarterly earnings of pharmaceutical companies and medical technology firms. The SEC alleges that Celgene Corporation's director of financial reporting John Lazorchak, Sanofi S.A.'s director of accounting and reporting Mark S. Cupo, and Stryker Corporation's marketing employee Mark D. ... (full story)