Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.AstraZeneca said a “small number” of its employees are under investigation by police in China, following a report they had been detained over possible infringement of data privacy laws and importing unlicensed medications.Police in Shenzhen have detained five current and former employees over the collection of patient data and the distribution of a liver cancer drug that had not been approved in the country, Bloomberg reported earlier on Thursday.The employees are Chinese citizens who marketed cancer drugs and were arrested earlier this summer, according to Bloomberg.The UK drugmaker did not provide any further information. Shenzhen police did not immediately respond to requests for information.AstraZeneca is the largest overseas drugmaker by sales in China, with about 16,000 staff in the country. It generated $5.9bn of revenue from China last year, 13 per cent of the group’s total.The company has recently hailed the opportunity to back innovative drugmakers in China, which are struggling to finance late-stage clinical trials because of a downturn in fundraising in the industry.Chief executive Pascal Soriot said at an investor day in May that China was a “great source of innovation”. In December, the company made one of its first acquisitions in the country, paying up to $1.2bn for cell therapy company Gracell Biotechnologies and adding to the wave of foreign pharmaceutical companies buying assets. But the company has previously faced scrutiny from Chinese authorities, disclosing in 2022 that a small number of employees in Shenzhen had tampered with patient test reports and were suspected of defrauding medical insurance funds.In a sign of concerns over operating in China amid increasing tensions between Beijing and Washington, AstraZeneca has also been developing independent supply chains for the country. It has discussed spinning off its China business with bankers, the Financial Times reported in June last year.Beijing has targeted pharmaceutical companies and hospitals in a wider anti-corruption campaign over the past year designed to root out kickbacks, the misuse of public funds and other abuses that have increased the costs of medical care. Senior public health officials from Guangdong and Guizhou have both been caught up in the corruption crackdown. The Global Times, a state-run publication, said that between March and April alone, at least 33 “key” figures from hospitals, universities or health departments have been investigated or disciplined. Industry insiders said that kickbacks have been a common practice, especially for the domestic drugmakers with large networks of salespeople, and are an important way in which doctors supplement paltry salaries from public hospitals.Other pharmaceutical companies have previously been hit by investigations for work in China.In 2014, GSK was hit with a £297mn fine over paying bribes to doctors to use their drugs, with former Chinese director Mark Reilly and other GSK executives receiving suspended prison sentences.Other foreign companies have faced run-ins with the authorities, which are taking a more aggressive approach to investigating potential wrongdoing across industries from pharmaceutical, finance and consultancy.Last year, police raided Chinese offices of US due diligence group Mintz, Bain & Company and the expert network Capvision. Following the crackdown on consultancy work, Gallup, the polling and consulting group, pulled out of China while the US research firm Forrester Research axed the majority of its staff in the country.
