SHANGHAI - The British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline said Monday that some of its executives might have broken the law in China, the company’s strongest statement yet on a bribery and corruption scandal that has engulfed its China operations.
The statement, released after three top Glaxo executives met with Chinese investigators, came amid signs that other drugmakers could also come under scrutiny from Chinese authorities.
On Monday, the British-Swedish drug company AstraZeneca said one of its employees had been questioned by police in Shanghai. The company released a statement saying that the police had visited the company and had questions about a sales representative.
“We believe that this investigation relates to an individual case and while we have not yet received an update from the Public Security Bureau, we have no reason to believe it’s related to any other investigations,” the statement added.
Over the weekend, the drug makers Merck and Roche acknowledged that they had used the same small Shanghai travel agency that investigators say worked with Glaxo to bribe doctors, hospitals and government officials.
Glaxo has been under intense scrutiny for the past few weeks after investigators raided offices in China and detained four senior executives on suspicion of bribery and tax fraud.
In the statement Monday,Abbas Hussain, a Glaxo executive, said: “Certain senior executives of GSK China who know our systems well appear to have acted outside of our processes and controls, which breaches Chinese law. We have zero tolerance for any behavior of this nature.”
His statement, which came after a meeting with China’s Ministry of Public Security, or national police, continued: “I want to make it very clear that we share the desire of the Chinese authorities to root out corruption wherever it exists. We will continue to work together with the MPS and we will take all necessary actions required as this investigation progresses.”
Andrew Witty, the company’s chief executive, sent three top executives to China last weekend to meet with the government. They included Hussain, who apologized in a meeting with an official from the Ministry of Public Security.
The apology and statement that its executives may have broken the law is a sharp reversal for the company. A few weeks ago, executives at Glaxo said that this year they conducted an internal investigation into allegations of bribery and fraud in the China operations and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Police in Shanghai have also detained Peter Humphrey, a British fraud investigator who had done some contract work for Glaxo, according to a person familiar with his case. But it was unclear whether the police were holding him in connection with the investigation into Glaxo or on a separate matter.
Business, Pages 20 on 07/23/2013