GSK graft 'nationwide and systemic', state radio cites saleswoman as saying
Saleswoman for drugmaker says it logged every visit to doctors, whose leisure activities the firm funded with money recorded as seminar fees
A saleswoman for drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has told state media the company's corrupt activities in China were nationwide and systemic, not an isolated case of a few bad apples as portrayed by GSK chief executive officer Andrew Witty.
If the allegations are true, it may increase the UK drug giant's chances of being charged under the UK Bribery Act.
"This case is not just the acts of some of the senior management in GSK's China operations, but a long-established operating model," said a radio report.
China National Radio quoted the saleswoman, who only gave her surname, Wang, as saying that the company gave every sales representative a nationwide list of doctors, including their rank and contact details. Every time a GSK sales representative visited a doctor or invited a doctor to a seminar, it had to be recorded in GSK's database.
When visiting a doctor, the GSK sales representative would give the doctor a fee for speaking at a seminar, often when the doctor did not speak at all, Wang admitted. Expenses for doctors' vacations, karaoke, saunas, massages and sessions with prostitutes would be recorded as seminar fees in company accounts, she said.
At a press conference in London on Wednesday, Witty said he was told by Chinese authorities that some senior Chinese GSK executives apparently broke laws by working outside GSK's system. He expressed confidence in the integrity of 99.99 per cent of GSK's worldwide employees.