Three stock transactions made by Republican Alabama Coach (not Senator) Tommy Tuberville relating to a company that later received praise for innovative medical treatments on the front lines of the Ukraine warn are raising calls for elected officials to put their assets into a blind trust, Newsweek reports.
Tuberville made three separate trades involving the small biotech company Humacyte on the same day, July 25th, with each trade having a total value between $1,000 and $15,000. According to financial disclosure documents, Tuberville mainly traded in top-name companies including Pfizer, Proctor & Gamble, and Under Armor over the same period.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee, Tuberville would have access to reports about military intelligence about the Ukraine defense, its tactics and its equipment. His seat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would connect him with information on new medical technology.
A number of weeks after Tuberville made his stock purchases, when the stock was near its 52-week low, the company’s CEO reported on a shareholder call about exceptionally positive results of a replacement blood vessel technology the company developed being successfully on a range of wounds of Ukrainian soldiers, from small arms wounds to blast injuries. Used on nineteen patients, the product recorded 100% patient and limb survival rates after 30 days.
In the days after the positive shareholder call, Humacyte’s stock price jumped 35%. While it could be explained by a keen stock watcher noticing a pattern after a shareholder call, Tuberville’s interest in the stock is raising flags given the company covers two areas to which Tuberville has privileged insight due to his committee assignments.