Wednesday, October 16, 2013

GlaxoChinaGate contd. - The Return of Reilly

HONG KONG — The former general manager of China operations for the pharmaceutical multinational GlaxoSmithKline has returned to China and remains there to help the authorities investigating corruption and bribery allegations, a spokesman for the company said Wednesday.

Mark Reilly was general manager when he left China in late June after the police raided Glaxo offices there as part of an inquiry that has exposed allegations of using bribes and illicit payments to win customers in the country’s intensely competitive market for drugs and other medical products. Mr. Reilly, who went to London, was replaced in July. Mr. Reilly is “working closely with the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and voluntarily returned to China to help them,” Mark Steel, a Glaxo spokesman in London, said in an e-mailed statement. “At no point was he detained. Mark remains in China to help further with the investigation should it be required.” He said Mr. Reilly went back to China several weeks ago.

A British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, reported on Tuesday that after his return, investigators ordered Mr. Reilly not to leave China. Mr. Steel would not comment on that report and referred to his statement.

According to reports in the Chinese state-run news media that cited police investigators, Glaxo employees have confessed to paying off doctors with travel, lecture fees and cash in a bid to win more prescriptions for the company’s drugs. Employees were also involved in arranging bogus meetings and lectures, the reports said. Senior executives for Glaxo in London have apologized to Chinese officials for any misdeeds and vowed to cooperate with the investigators.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/business/international/glaxo-executive-returns-to-china.html?src=busln&_r=0

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