The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched a series of investigations into whether employees at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) violated insider-trading laws by leaking information to traders, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The report offered information on three concurrent SEC investigations. Citing sources familiar with the investigations, the paper says the SEC has interviewed CMS officials and issued subpoenas to Wall Street traders and other government officials.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the investigations are focused on the following:

• Determining whether information was leaked about a CMS review of Provenge, a prostate cancer treatment from Dendreon Corp;
• Investigating whether a former CMS employee, David Blaszczak, used inside information to predict Medicare payment rates; and
• Questioning whether a research firm, Height Securities, was given information about funding for health insurance firms.

CMS said it was cooperating with the investigation.