Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced on Thursday that the head of its China operations had been detained following reports that the firm was being investigated for potentially illegal data collection and drug importation.

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

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

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

Last month, the firm confirmed that Wang was under investigation.

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

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

The investigations involved five current and former employees of the company — all with Chinese citizenship — and were led by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen, Bloomberg said.

An investigation into the firm’s collection of patient data, which authorities suspect may have violated China’s privacy laws, Bloomberg reported, citing people with knowledge of the situation.

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

Headquartered in the United Kingdom, the firm employs 90,000 people globally.

Global firms have faced an increasingly difficult business environment in China in recent years, industry the groups say, citing a lack of transparency about the country’s data laws and prolonged detentions of employees.

Source: AFP