UCB’s Chinese offices visited by authorities

Chinese authorities have visited the offices of Belgian drug maker UCB, as the country looks to widen its investigation into the malpractices by foreign firms in the pharmaceutical sector, following a bribery scandal at British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline, writes the International Business Times’ Jerin Mathew. UCB is one of the several drug companies under investigation by Chinese authorities, Reuters reported. "They have been launching inspections with several pharmaceutical companies active in the country, both Chinese and foreign companies such as ours, and as part of the process our Shanghai office was visited by the agency in the last 48 hours," a UCB spokesman said. He noted that the officials were from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), which is one of the three main anti-trust regulators in charge of market supervision.

The latest development comes in line with a July 16 report by Bloomberg that China is investigating at least four multinational drug makers. Earlier this week, China's ministry for public security accused unnamed GSK executives of routing 3bn yuan €375m) in bribes to doctors through 700 travel agencies and consultancies over a six-year period. Since the outbreak of the scandal, various governmental agencies have announced measures to crack down on malpractices in the pharmaceutical sector in China, which is of high importance to global drug companies. China is expected to overtake Japan as the world's second-biggest drugs market behind the US by 2016.