Chinese prosecutors have brought formal charges against AstraZeneca and its former executives following investigations into alleged illegal patient data collection and importation of drugs.
The prosecutor in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has indicted an AstraZeneca subsidiary in China, a former executive vice president, and another former senior employee, according to AZ. The EVP is believed to be AZ’s former head of the country, Leon Wang, who was detained in 2024 as part of a probe. AZ confirmed Wang as the EVP in question to the Financial Times.
The charges include unlawful collection of personal information and illegal trade, AZ shared in its fourth-quarter earnings report (PDF) Tuesday. The two former execs also face additional charges of medical insurance fraud, according to the company.
The case has been consolidated into one proceeding, with no trial date set yet, AZ said.
The indictments, filed in November 2025, predated a major investment pledge AZ made to China and followed investigations that first emerged in September 2024.
Regarding the illegal trade allegation, Chinese authorities determined that AstraZeneca Investment (China) Co., Ltd. owed about 24 million Chinese yuan (about $3.5 million) in unpaid taxes tied to the alleged illegal importation of cancer drugs Imfinzi, Imjudo and Enhertu, according to AZ.
The British pharma said it has prepaid the full amount but warned that it may be asked to pay a fine that’s worth up to five times the amount if the company is found liable for illegal trade.
Local authorities did not pin any illegal gain on AZ under the unlawful collection of personal information allegation.
Before the latest high-profile investigation, AZ has been embroiled in a medical insurance scandal in China, in which the company’s staffers were found to have altered some lung cancer patients’ genetic testing results to make them eligible for AZ’s EGFR inhibitor Tagrisso. Several AZ staffers in China have been sentenced in relation to that case, which also started in Shenzhen, some facing more than 10 years in prison and hefty fines, according to local media reports.
Besides Wang, Chinese authorities have also detained Eva Yin, AZ’s former oncology business head in China, in the fall of 2024. Almost simultaneously, Rightongene Biotechnology, a Shanghai-based diagnostic partner with AZ, said that several of its top executives, including its owner and CEO, and a vice general manager and former AZ exec, were arrested on charges of fraud.
The investigations have caused some disruptions to AZ’s China business, although it remains the largest foreign drugmaker in the country with $5.5 billion in sales in 2025. However, its 4% year-over-year growth marked a slowdown from the double-digit increases AZ had enjoyed in the past, as generic competition intensified.
SGLT-2 inhibitor Farxiga, which is AZ’s largest product with $8.4 billion in 2025 sales, will soon be included in China’s volume-based procurement—a cost-cutting program targeting off-patent drugs—in the first quarter of 2026.
Merck & Co.-partnered cancer drug Lynparza and the chronic kidney disease anemia therapy roxadustat are now both facing generic competition in China.
Despite the headwinds, AZ remains confident that some newer launches will drive growth in China, AZ’s new international chief, Iskra Reic, Ph.D., who replaced Wang at the end of 2024, said Tuesday during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. She pointed to recent inclusions of Enhertu, Fasenra, Truqap and Calquence in China’s national insurance scheme.
In parallel to the legal headache, AZ is making a big commitment to China, having just unveiled a $15 billion investment in the country through 2030 as CEO Pascal Soriot recently accompanied British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on a state visit to China.
“I’m absolutely convinced we need to be in China to collaborate with, partner with Chinese companies, but also to compete and learn,” Soriot said on AZ’s Q4 earnings call. “[We need to] learn to compete with them and how they compete, not only commercially, but mostly from an R&D perspective, because the world has changed, and they are increasingly becoming a fundamental part of innovation in our industry. And some of them, at some point, will become global companies.”