A senior executive at BeiGene is under investigation by Chinese authorities, multiple local media outlets report.
The exec is Eva Yin, according to Chinese business news outlets Yicai and Jiemian. Yin joined BeiGene in January 2022 as its chief commercial officer of Greater China.
In a statement Friday, BeiGene confirmed that an employee is cooperating with an ongoing investigation in China. Based on BeiGene’s understanding, the investigation is not related to BeiGene’s activities, according to the company’s statement.
Before joining BeiGene, Yin spent 15 years with AstraZeneca, having served in various posts at the British drugmaker, including as head of its oncology business in China.
Yin has been detained by anti-smuggling authorities in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen for more than 48 hours, The Economic Observer reports. The investigation involves allegations of illegal importation during her tenure at AZ, the Chinese news outlet reports, citing multiple people familiar with the matter. Several AZ employees have also been detained, according to the news site.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that five current and former employees of AstraZeneca had been detained by Shenzhen police during the summer over possible violations of data privacy laws and illegal importation of unapproved drugs. The individuals involved are associated with AZ’s oncology division, Bloomberg reported at the time, citing people familiar with the matter.
Prior to that, Chinese authorities in January 2022 accused some AZ staffers of running an insurance swindle, tampering with genetic testing results to put ineligible patients on the company’s EGFR inhibitor Tagrisso. The case started in Shenzhen.
Yin witnessed AZ’s golden age in China marked by years of unparalleled, double-digit sales growth until two price-cutting schemes started to eat away at the company’s revenues for its off-patent and newer drugs.
As for BeiGene, China has been contributing the majority of the cancer specialist’s revenue up until recently. As the BTK inhibitor Brukinsa gains ground in the U.S.—and as the PD-1 inhibitor Tevimbra starts rolling out outside of China—BeiGene’s reliance on China is diminishing. In 2023, BeiGene’s product sales were roughly equally split between China and ex-China. In the first six months of 2024, China made up 40% of BeiGene’s product sales.
In July, BeiGene opened its flagship U.S. biologics manufacturing and innovation center in New Jersey. Earlier this month, BeiGene officially launched Tevimbra in the U.S. at a 10% discount to Merck & Co.’s Keytruda.
Despite its decreasing commercial dependence on China, BeiGene recently restored certain risk factor disclosures related to its operations in the country based on a request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.