Asia Tech Wire (Oct 25) -- Chinese biotech firm BeiGene's (BGNE:NASDAQ; 6160.HK) chief commercial officer for Greater China, Eva Yin, is said to be under investigation by Chinese regulators, according to recent market rumors.
And according to a number of Chinese media reports, industry sources have confirmed that the news is true.
BeiGene said in a statement Friday that it recently learned that an employee of the company is cooperating with a related investigation.
"Based on current knowledge, the incident involving this employee is unrelated to BeiGene," the company said.
Sources familiar with the matter said Yin was taken away because she was involved in the AstraZeneca China insurance fraud in 2021, and that a number of people involved in the matter have been taken away for investigation in recent days, and some have been released.
Yin joined BeiGene in January 2022 as chief commercial officer for Greater China.
Prior to joining BeiGene, she worked for AstraZeneca from 2006 to 2021, becoming vice president of AstraZeneca China in June 2018.
In January 2019, she went on to become general manager of AstraZeneca China's oncology business unit, where she was directly responsible for Tagrisso (osimertinib), a lung cancer drug that has since been linked to the 2021 insurance fraud.
In July 2021, the Shenzhen Municipal Healthcare Security Bureau, based on the tip-off, verified that AstraZeneca staff were suspected of fraudulent insurance fraud, and opened an investigation.
In the following four years, more than 100 AstraZeneca medical representatives, regional managers and district directors in Shenzhen, Fujian, Shanghai, Jiangxi and Chongqing have been involved in this protracted investigation.
China's National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) accused AstraZeneca employees of fraudulently obtaining health insurance funds by expanding sales of its lung cancer drug Tagrisso by falsifying genetic test results.
And in early 2022, the NHSA publicly stated that it had broken up a fraud ring suspected of tampering with genetic test results of oncology patients to defraud health insurance funds, arresting 17 people involved.
However, according to AstraZeneca's January 2022 statement on its website, the fraud involved was discovered in August 2021 by AstraZeneca during an internal compliance check.
By 2024, there were still reports of AstraZeneca executives under investigation. Previously Cailianshe and other Chinese media reported that several AstraZeneca China executives were taken away from an oncology summit in July, suspected to be related to illegal smuggling of CTLA-4 drugs.
