On January 18 2012, an article appeared on Seeking Alpha, the finance-focused website, entitled “Another revival could be in store for ImmunoCellular Therapeutics”. The article highlighted the US drug company’s work in developing an experimental cancer treatment.
But readers were not informed that ImmunoCellular Therapeutics had paid the author, Vincent Cassano, indirectly to produce the story, according to documents filed at a court in New York by the US regulator in April.
The article suggested that ImmunoCellular Therapeutics had produced an important cancer treatment, known as ICT-107, which was less costly than a rival product that had already received approval from US regulators.