Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday disclosed in documents that his wife bought stock in Gilead Sciences, which manufactures antiviral drugs, in February 2020—before the threat from the CCP virus was classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
Paul said that he missed the deadline for filing such disclosures by 16 months because he wasn’t aware of the investment at the time. Under the anti-insider trading law called the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, the senator had a 45-day deadline from the time of investment.
His wife, Kelley Paul, an author and former communications consultant, reportedly used her own money to purchase between $1,000 and $15,000 worth of stock in the company that makes the antiviral drug remdesivir that was used to treat former President Donald Trump when he had COVID-19 in October last year.
Kelsey Cooper, the senator’s communications director, told The Hill in a statement that Paul only noticed that the investment hadn’t been disclosed as he was preparing to submit his annual paperwork for last year. He filed the paperwork on Wednesday, she said.
The Republican senator’s wife ultimately lost money on the investment, Cooper noted.
“Last year Dr. Paul completed the reporting form for an investment made by his wife using her own earnings, an investment which she has lost money on. This was done in the appropriate reporting time window,” Cooper said in a statement.
“In the process of preparing to file his annual financial disclosure for last year, he learned that the form was not transmitted and promptly alerted the filing office and requested their guidance. In accordance with that guidance he filed both reports today.”
Gilead Sciences said in June that an analysis showed remdesivir reduced mortality rates in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and increased the likelihood of being discharged by day 28 after a five-day course of the treatment.
The drugmaker said on Monday it analyzed data from 98,654 patients from three retrospective studies of the real-world treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Remdesivir achieved statistically significant 54 percent and 23 percent reduction in risk of mortality among the analyzed patients in two of the studies, the company said. The data was presented at the World Microbe Forum in June.
Remdesivir has been approved for emergency use in severely-ill patients in the United States, India, and South Korea, and has received full approval in Japan.
The drug brought in $2.8 billion for Gilead in 2020.
Cooper told The Washington Post that the Kentucky Republican didn’t attend any briefings on the topic of COVID-19.
