British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca said on Tuesday it takes “extremely seriously” China’s investigations into illegal data collection and drug imports by the group that led to the arrest of its chief.
“We take matters very seriously in China,” CEO Pascal Soriot said in a statement included in the group’s latest earnings release.
“We will fully cooperate with the authorities if requested. We remain committed to providing innovative life-changing medicines to Chinese patients,” he added.
The group confirmed last week that Leon Wang, the president of AstraZeneca China, had been arrested.
China is a key market for AstraZeneca, the developer of a Covid-19 jab that has become widespread throughout the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
AstraZeneca said on Tuesday that China accounted for about 12% of its revenue in the third quarter. Sales in the country rose 15 percent in the July-September period.
“The company is aware of certain investigations by the Chinese authorities into former and current employees of AstraZeneca,” the drug giant added in its latest statement.
“To the best of the company’s knowledge, the investigations include allegations of medical insurance fraud, illegal drug importation and breach of personal information.”
AstraZeneca said it “has not received any notification that it is being investigated”.
The investigations involve five current and former employees of the company – all Chinese nationals – run by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen, according to Bloomberg.
An investigation into the company’s collection of patient data, which authorities suspect may have violated Chinese privacy laws, the financial news outlet also reported, citing people familiar with the situation.
Another probe related to imports of a liver cancer drug that was not approved in mainland China, according to Bloomberg.
UK-based AstraZeneca employs 90,000 people worldwide.
Global companies have faced an increasingly difficult business climate in China in recent years, industry groups say, citing a lack of transparency in data laws and lengthy detentions of workers.
