GlaxoSmithKline in China Investigated for “Economic Crimes”

GlaxoSmithKline in China Investigated for “Economic Crimes”
Jul 12, 2013 By eChinacities.com

Senior managers of British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline are being investigated by Chinese authorities for “economic crimes”. Trouble surfaced when The Wall Street Journal obtained a report by a whistleblower, claiming sales staff in China had for years engaged in the “widespread bribery of doctors to prescribe drugs.”

Around the same time, the head of the company’s research and development staff in Shanghai was fired for misrepresenting data in a research report. Trouble further intensified for GSK over the weekend when Chinese police detained managers in Beijing, Shanghai and Changsha, according to the South China Morning Post. However, Changsha police have not provided any further details about the investigation and a GSK spokesman in London has said it is unclear what the investigation is about.

Source: news.sohu.com

Warning:The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.

1 Comments

All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.

happywanderer

Haha I was wondering when this'd come up. "Widespread bribery of doctors to prescribe drugs” - that's an actual industry here, there are people whose job it is to give expensive "gifts" to doctors and take them out to restaurants so that they prescribe their products. Every supplier of medicine (or anything else actually) in China sells in this way. Only... GSK isn't a local company so if there's a reason to punish them (like a lack of bribes) this is a suitable trumped up charge. Long live guanxi, it doesn't encourage corruption in any way.

Jul 14, 2013 09:11 Report Abuse