[THE INVESTOR] Prosecutors raided around 10 brokerage houses on Oct. 19 amid allegations that the firms were involved in short-selling Hanmi Pharmaceutical shares based on leaked information.

Investigators also raided Hanmi‘s headquarters on Oct. 17 on speculation it leaked confidential data before an official regulation filing, which could have resulted in unfair trading of shares on the stock market.

The South Korean drug maker said last month its license deal on a lung cancer treatment drug with Boehringer Ingelheim was canceled, resulting in a sharp drop of its shares. In July 2015, Hanmi had signed an 850 billion-won (US$757 million) agreement with the German pharmaceutical giant to jointly develop and sell the new drug, HM61713.

Prosecutors said raids were carried out at securities firms that engaged in relatively heavy short-selling of Hanmi shares.

Investigators said they will look deeper into the case and find out if any investors gained profits by predicting the sharp decline of Hanmi shares.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)