Surging Rare Disease Stocks, CEO Sells Off Billions After Exercising Options

From May 19 to 21, Martin Rothblatt, founder and CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation (NASDAQ: UTHR), exercised stock options on 28,500 common shares and then sold the majority of those shares in the open market, according to a regulatory filing. The sales took place at prices ranging from approximately $558 to $577 per share, generating total proceeds of about $15.65 million (roughly ₩210 billion) over three days. The transactions were carried out under a prearranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan for liquidity and diversification purposes.

After this sale, Rothblatt’s direct holdings fell slightly to about 40,513 shares. Including indirect holdings held through his spouse and family trusts, however, he retains an economic interest in the hundreds of thousands of shares.

On May 6, the company reported first-quarter 2026 earnings of $5.82 per share and announced a $2 billion share repurchase program. It also disclosed that results from the TETON-1 trial of its pulmonary arterial hypertension therapy Tyvaso were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. More recently, the FDA granted approval for the UHeart xenotransplantation clinical trial, and the stock has climbed to around $609 per share as of May 6, trading near its all-time high.

United Therapeutics, founded in 1996 by Rothblatt to develop a treatment for his daughter’s rare, severe pulmonary arterial hypertension, is a U.S. biotechnology company specializing in therapies for pulmonary hypertension and other organ diseases, as well as organ-regeneration technologies such as 3D bioprinting and xenotransplantation. Listed on Nasdaq as a public benefit corporation, the company’s charter and shareholder communications emphasize its dual mission of expanding patient treatment and transplant organ supply while enhancing long-term shareholder value.