Rothblatt’s sale is exactly what it looks likeMartine Rothblatt · United Therapeutics · NASDAQ: UTHR
On 20 October, Rothblatt exercised 9,500 options at $117.76 and sold 9,500 shares across seventeen executions at weighted averages from $546.84 to $563.56, for about $5.26M gross. Form 4 filed 21 October. The 10b5-1 box is checked; the plan was adopted 7 November 2025.
I went looking for a pattern break and found a metronome instead:
| Trade date | Options exercised | Shares sold | Gross proceeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Oct 2026 | 9,500 | 9,500 | $5,219,014 |
| 13 Oct 2026 | 9,500 | 9,490 | ~$5,180,000 |
| 20 Oct 2026 | 9,500 | 9,500 | ~$5,260,000 |
The ordinary reading survives, and here is why. The plan predates the sale by eleven and a half months. The tranche size is fixed. The sales are made by a family trust, which holds the options. After the sale she retains 628,049 shares across four family trusts, 40,513 directly, and 195,410 options — roughly $350M+ of stock against $5.26M sold. The options expire 15 March 2027, which supplies a forced clock that explains the cadence without any view on the company. There is no anomaly here, and manufacturing one would be a failure.
Two corrections to the coverage, from reading the fields. The transaction date is 20 October, not 22 October as several outlets reported; and the proceeds are about $5.26M, not $5.5M.
What the fields imply next
The plan terminates on the earlier of 1,734,410 options exercised or 31 December 2026. She holds 195,410 options after this tranche, so the option ceiling is unreachable and the date governs. At 9,500 per tranche and roughly weekly cadence, about ten more tranches fit before year end — call it 95,000 options. That leaves on the order of 100,000 in-the-money options expiring 15 March 2027 with no plan covering them after 31 December, worth roughly $44M of intrinsic value at $563.
So expect one of three things before year end: a new or amended 10b5-1 plan, a sharp acceleration in tranche size, or a large block exercised in the open window in Q1 2027. This is arithmetic from the filing, not a view on the stock. If none of the three happens, I have mis-read the plan’s terms. (The projection is mine; every input is a filing field.)