UPDATE: Just as Australian stock markets opened on Tuesday morning, Innate Immunotherapeutics, the Australian drug company at the center of an insider trading scandal, announced that its key medication had failed clinical trials. The announcement led to a precipitous fall in stock value as investors rushed to sell off holdings. By the end of the day Innate stock was worth about 3.5 cents.
As dramatic as this event was for the average shareholder, it was perhaps all the more dramatic for NY Rep. Chris Collins, who has been under investigation since May by the Office of Congressional Ethics for his role in pumping investment in Innate through a private stock placement and pushing legislation that would benefit the company. As Innate’s largest shareholder Collins “suffered a paper loss” of over $16 million based on the stock value at the time of collapse.
Collins originally bragged of making millionaires in Buffalo in a few months – 8 of Innate’s top 20 investors came from Western New York – but now has potentially cost the Buffalo elite he enriched millions in just a day, all while making them central to the OCE investigation.
See our original research on Chris Collins’ stock scheme in the Buffalo News and the follow up on the investigation on our blog, Eyes on the Ties.
The table below details Innate investors and their contributions to Collins’ campaigns as well as other ties to the Congressman.
| Name | Bio | Connection to Collins |
| Caitlin Collins | Associate, Phillips Lytle, LLP | Collins’ daughter; Donated $5,000 to Collins’ capaigns; Phillips Lytle has donated at least $44,000 |
| Christopher Graham | President, Volland Electric | Collins is a partner at Volland and owns between $5 million and $25 million in equity; Volland has donated at least $20,000 to Collins |
| Brian Geary | Executive, Bloch Industries | Donated $2,000 to Collins; Collins is chairman of Bloch Industries and owns between $500,000 and $1 million in equity |
| Brian Lipke | Former CEO, Gibraltar Industries | Lipke has donated $20,000 to Collins’ campaigns; Gibraltar has donated $5,500; Collins owns between $250,000 and $500,000 in Gibraltar equity |
| Paul Harder | Former CEO, Cliffstar; former CEO, Clinical Support Services; Manager, Uniland Development | Harder and his wife have donated at least $32,200 to Collins |
| Robert Stevenson | President, Eastman Machine | Stevenson has donated $15,800 to Collins and Eastman Machine has donated $10,000 |
| Paul Reid | CEO, Reid Petroleum | Donated $17,000 to Collins’ campaigns |
| Glenn Arthurs | Managing Director, Arthurs Malof Group, UBS | Donated $8,300 to Collins’ campaigns; Arthurs’ son Donald is also invested in Innate |
| Phillip Delmont | Parter, Harter, Secrest, and Emery, LLP | Harter, Secrest, and Emery has donated $3,500 to Collins’ campaigns |
| William Grove | Retired | Donated $2,740 to Collins; Collins holds a mortgage between $100,000 and $250,000 on Grove’s Venice, Florida house |
| Thomas Massung | Former SVP, M&T Bank | Donated $1,300 to Collins |
| Bill Paxon | Senior advisor, Akin Gump | Donated $1,000 to Collins |
| Mark Lema | Chair, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care & Pain Medicine, Roswell Park Cancer Institute | Donated $500 to Collins |
All the Buffalo-area investors who took part in the Innate Immunotherapeutics private placements in 2016 and their various connections to Collins can be seen in the map embedded below.