British drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline continues to be targeted by the Chinese police force for its involvement in a major bribery scandal. At least 18 GSK workers have been detained by police for their involvement in the scandal, which has grown into a large-scale investigation and public issue in China.
Police in Zhengzhou, a city in north-central China, arrested 18 GSK employees and medical personnel that are believed to be involved in the scandal The new arrests are in addition to the four GlaxoSmithKline executives arrested earlier in the week over their involvement in the scandal.
GlaxoSmithKline employees allegedly ran a multi-million pound bribery scheme that used travel agencies to influence doctors throughout China. Expensive gifts and cash bribes were used to encourage doctors to prescribe GlaxoSmithKline’s drugs using a network of fronts and contractors linked to the British company.
Despite the large scale of the bribery, the company’s UK headquarters announced that it was completely unaware of the operations until they were revealed by the Chinese media this month. The company admits that Chinese executives broke the law in executing the plan but denied any officials having knowledge of the plan.
As well as encouraging doctors to prescribe drugs to more patients, the bribes were allegedly aimed at increasing the quantity of drugs prescribed to each patient in an effort to boost GSK’s Chinese drug sales. As well as bribing doctors with money and gifts, GSK allegedly invited doctors to conferences to improve their careers.
This included making payments to doctors in exchange for giving presentations and speeches that never took place. The company allegedly forged speeches in order to create a trail of evidence justifying its payments to doctors. GSK’s goal was allegedly to increase total drug sales in China by 30 percent over the last two years.
