Eli Lilly latest to become embroiled in China bribery allegations

In the ongoing allegations of bribery and corruption by multinational drugmakers in China, US pharma major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) is the latest to be implicated, with the company saying it is "deeply concerned" by claims that it bribed doctors to prescribe its drugs.

The comment comes after the Chinese paper 21st Century Business Herald cited a former employee of the company, identified by the pseudonym Wang Wei, as saying the firm paid out 30 million renminbi ($4.9 million). Wang Wei claimed that Lilly staff paid hospital doctors in Shanghai and Anhui for each new patient placed on its diabetes treatments Humulin (human insulin [rDNA origin]) and Byetta (exenatide). He commented "in order to hit sales at rival companies and push the company's own products, bribes and special payments of all sorts were extremely common."

The same local paper recently quoted another anonymous source alleging similar actions by France’s Sanofi (The Pharma Letters passim). Others so far implicated in payments to doctors and officials aimed at increasing prescribing of their drug products include GlaxoSmithKline, Lundbeck, Novo Nordisk and AstraZeneca.