A former executive of BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (Birmingham, AL) and his wife have been sentenced to federal prison for their part in a plan to falsify clinical trial data on a psoriasis and skin cancer treatment. The couple, who falsified data from clinical trials of the enzyme inhibitor BCX-34, were convicted in March of conspiracy, mail fraud and making false statements to the US Food and Drug Administration. On August 31, a federal court judge in Birmingham sentenced Harry Snyder and Renee Peugeot, who was a nurse in the trials, to three years and two and a half years in prison, respectively. Snyder was also ordered to pay $26,000 restitution to the FDA. BioCryst spokesperson AK Schleusner says Snyder, who was running phase II trials of the drug in 1994 and 1995, was fired in 1995 when false data was discovered; BioCryst subsequently abandoned development of the drug in 1997 after phase III trails were unsuccessful.

The sentencing did not affect the firm's stock price, which was trading at $30 per share in early September.