Sorrento Therapeutics Wins Appeal Over Covid Treatment Remarks

A Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. investor came up short in alleging that the biopharmaceutical company misled the public in May 2020 about a Covid-19 antibody it was developing, the Ninth Circuit said Monday.

Shareholder Andrew Zenoff didn’t adequately plead that statements by Sorrento and two executives, “when viewed in context, were false as opposed to overstated,” Judge Consuelo M. Callahan said. The appeals court unanimously affirmed a lower court’s April 2022 dismissal of the proposed shareholder class action.

Zenoff also failed to show the necessary level of intent for securities fraud, Callahan said. “At best, we can infer that Defendants’ excitement ...