Court Dismisses Amgen Insider Trading Suit

Ventura County Superior Court has dismissed an insider-trading lawsuit against former executives of Amgen Inc., the biotechnology firm based in Thousand Oaks.

The suit was filed in June, 1991, by former Amgen contracts administrator Benjamin Y. Mahler, who accused former Amgen President Harry F. Hixson Jr. and two other company officials of publicly trading Amgen stock based on insider information related to when the federal Food and Drug Administration would approve Amgen’s products.

But last month the court in Ventura approved the defendants’ motion for summary judgment dismissing the suit, attorneys said. Brian Brown, Mahler’s attorney, said he planned to appeal the ruling.