Gallin added, "The stock purchases were not with companies I had any relationship with in my position at NIH. I listed them in my annual [NIH disclosure reports]. If I thought there was a possibility of a conflict I filed a recusal." He said nearly all of the holdings were sold by the end of last year.
Dr. Ruth L. Kirschstein, the NIH deputy director, at first told The Times that she had never allowed an official to own a drug company stock if it required filing a recusal. But Kirschstein later corrected herself, acknowledging that she personally approved recusals that allowed Gallin to own stock in several companies.
For Gallin, avoiding matters involving Abgenix could grow more complicated because of its many new research partners, including industry giants Pfizer, Amgen and AstraZeneca.
-- David Willman
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CASE STUDY | RONALD N. GERMAIN
A Federal Lab Leader Who Made $1.4 Million on the Side
BETHESDA, Md. -- Dr. Ronald N. Germain has been a paid advisor to a dozen drug-development companies, a law firm that specializes in patent litigation and an investment fund that buys and sells biotechnology stocks.
By his own accounting, he has collected more than $1.4 million in fees over the last 11 years and gathered company stock options valued at $865,000.
Germain's full-time job is deputy director of the National Institutes of Health's Laboratory of Immunology, which explores how the immune system protects against infections, cancer and other maladies.
His annual government salary is $179,900 -- but his consulting income surpassed it in one recent year and nearly matched it another year.
He has taken fees from a company collaborating formally on research with his laboratory. Another company's founder collaborated with Germain in his NIH capacity. Four more of his clients had grants or research agreements with the institute that houses his lab. He made plans last spring to begin consulting with a new client, a venture capital firm that invests in nascent biotechnology companies.
In written responses to questions from the Los Angeles Times, Germain, 55, said he had always followed NIH rules and had consulted with the approval of agency officials. He said he had not made government decisions affecting companies that paid him.
