CEO of US Biotech Company Sells Hundreds of Millions in Shares After Three Consecutive Stock Option Exercises

From May 27 through May 29, Martin Rothblatt, founder and CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ: UTHR), executed 28,500 stock options and sold approximately 30,000 common shares on the open market under a pre-established Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the three trading days, shares changed hands at roughly $548 to $580 each, generating about $16 million in cash. Rothblatt’s direct ownership dipped slightly from 50,013 shares to 40,513 shares, though his indirect holdings—via a family trust and spousal accounts—remain in the hundreds of thousands. The options exercised are part of a roughly 1.73 million-share pool set to expire in March 2027 and are being utilized under a long-term liquidity and diversification program that schedules phased option exercises and share sales through December 31, 2026.

In March, United Therapeutics’ board approved a new $2 billion share repurchase authorization and entered into a $1.5 billion accelerated buyback agreement with Citi, having already repurchased a significant portion of its stock. The remaining $500 million repurchase capacity can be flexibly deployed over the next year. In its first-quarter 2026 earnings release (filed May 6), the company reported revenue of $781.5 million and net income of $274.9 million, both slightly below year-earlier levels. United Therapeutics also announced positive data from its ADVANCE OUTCOMES and TETON-1 clinical trials and outlined plans to expand its pulmonary arterial hypertension and fibrosis pipeline.

Founded in 1996 by Rothblatt to develop a treatment for his daughter’s life-threatening rare pulmonary arterial hypertension, United Therapeutics is a U.S. biotechnology firm specializing in therapies for rare cardiopulmonary diseases, including Tyvaso, Remodulin, Orenitram, and Unituxin. As a public benefit corporation, it actively invests in expanding the supply of transplantable organs and in organ manufacturing technologies. The company’s principal operations are based in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.