Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced Thursday that the head of its China operations had been arrested, after the company came under investigation for potentially illegal data collection and drug importation.

Leon Wang, president of AstraZeneca China, “has been arrested,” a representative of the company’s global media team said in an email to AFP.

“If asked, we will fully cooperate with the Chinese authorities,” they said.

“We continue to supply our life-changing medicines to patients in China and our operations continue,” they said.

Last month, the company confirmed that Wang had been investigated.

China is a key market for AstraZeneca, developer of a Covid-19 vaccine widely administered around the world. world during the coronavirus pandemic.

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But in September, the company confirmed that several employees were under investigation in China after a report said they were being questioned over potentially illegal data collection and drug imports.

The investigations involved five current and former employees of the company – all Chinese nationals – and were led by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen, Bloomberg reported.

One investigation involved the company’s collection of patient data, which authorities suspect of violating Chinese privacy laws, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the situation.

Another investigation involved imports of a liver cancer drug that had not been approved in mainland China, according to Bloomberg.

The company, headquartered in the United Kingdom, has 90,000 employees worldwide.

Global companies have faced an increasingly difficult business environment in China in recent years, industry the groups say, citing a lack of transparency over data laws and prolonged employee detentions in the country.

Source: AFP