File photo used for demonstration purposes.
London: British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca on Tuesday said it takes "very seriously" China's investigations into potential illegal data collection and drug imports by the group that led to the detention of its China boss.
"We take the matters in China very seriously," chief executive Pascal Soriot said in a statement contained in the group's latest earnings release that revealed a small rise in net profit.
"If requested we will fully cooperate with the authorities. We remain committed to delivering innovative life-changing medicines to patients in China," he added.
The group last week confirmed Leon Wang, president of AstraZeneca China, had been detained.
China is a key market for AstraZeneca, developer of a Covid-19 jab widely administered throughout the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
AstraZeneca on Tuesday noted that China accounted for about 12 percent of its global revenues in the third quarter. Sales in the country jumped 15 percent in the July-September period.
"The company is aware of a number of individual investigations by the Chinese authorities into current and former AstraZeneca employees," the drugs giant added in the latest statement.
"To the best of the company's knowledge, the investigations include allegations of medical insurance fraud, illegal drug importation and personal information breaches."
AstraZeneca said it "has not received any notification that it is itself under investigation".
The probes involved five current and former employees of the firm -- all with Chinese citizenship -- which are being led by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen, according to Bloomberg.
One investigation related to the firm's collection of patient data, which authorities suspect may have breached Chinese privacy laws, the financial newswire also 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.
UK-headquartered AstraZeneca has 90,000 employees globally.
Multinationals have faced an increasingly-difficult business environment in China in recent years, industry groups say, citing a lack of transparency on data laws and prolonged detentions of employees.
US investment
AstraZeneca on Tuesday added that profit after tax rose four percent in the third quarter to $1.4 billion from a year earlier.
Total revenue jumped 18 percent to $13.6 billion, "reflecting the increasing demand for our medicines across oncology, biopharmaceuticals and rare disease", said Soriot.
The group also announced $2-billion of new investment in its main market, the United States.
Shares in AstraZeneca were down 1.3 percent in midday deals on London's top-tier FTSE 100 index, which was trading one percent lower overall.
Its shares fell sharply when reports of Wang's detention emerged earlier this month, wiping billions of dollars off its valuation.
AstraZeneca's profits "upgrade puts the Chinese probe in perspective", noted Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown.
