[colinmorelli]

This scenario seems very different because nobody gave the person any material non-public information at all, they simply deduced it from their experience participating in the trial. This feels similar to the question of "can a passenger on the Boeing jet with the door plug that blew out trade on that information" to which the answer appears to be yes.

Misappropriation theory is the following: > The misappropriation theory of insider trading is a form of insider trading where an individual trades stock in a corporation, with whom they are unaffiliated, on the basis of material non-public information they obtained through a breach of a fiduciary duty owed to the source of the information

The important part, which you're right was unclear in my comment is that the recipient of the information must have a fiduciary relationship with the source of the information, even if they do not have one with the company in question at all. That's the distinction.

[floam]

Yeah, that is the axis.

And turns out I didn’t just stumble upon an unconsidered edge case because I got accepted into a drug trial and activated my galaxy brain:

Allan Norwich, The Clinical Trial Research Participant As An Inside Trader (J. Health Law, 2006).

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1485012