GSK to pay record $489m fine for paying bribes
China fined GlaxoSmithKline Plc a record 3 billion yuan ($489 million) on Friday for paying bribes to doctors to use its drugs, underlining the risks of doing business there while also ending a damaging chapter for the British drugmaker.
A court in the southern city of Changsha handed suspended jail sentences to Mark Reilly, the former head of GSK in China, and four other GSK executives of between two and four years, according to state news agency Xinhua. Briton Reilly, shown on state television wearing a suit and looking tired during the trial, will be deported, a source with direct knowledge of the case said. The verdict, handed out behind closed doors in a single-day trial, highlights how Chinese regulators are increasingly cracking down on corporate malpractice.
However, it also offers GSK a potential way forward in the fast-growing Chinese pharmaceutical market, a magnet for foreign firms who are attracted by a healthcare bill that McKinsey & Co estimates will hit $1 trillion by 2020.
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