News on trial results would not be a problem, because he would not have known the data at the time he bought. Nobody knows trial results before unblinding.
As to a partner, as long as the status was reasonably consistent with the public statements, that is fine.
Problems would be if he had already inked a great deal (or already had top line results in hand).
The amount of the buy doesn't matter. But in practice, the SEC would obviously not care about a minor purchase. The only recent case I remember of the SEC taking action on a buy was when Murdoch bought DowJones, and some guy from Asia bought a ton of calls before the news was out.
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