Developing | China’s fentanyl firms back crackdown on opioid
- Country’s biggest maker of the drug says underground producers and distributors to blame for any supplies reaching the United States
The biggest legal producer of fentanyl in China has welcomed the country’s commitment to clamp down on the synthetic opioid to help stop the flow of the drug to the United States.
Humanwell Healthcare chairman Wang Xuehai said on Monday that any fentanyl reaching American shores from China was “illegally manufactured by underground factories and smuggled to the US”.
“It has nothing to do with the five legal producers of fentanyl products [in China], including us,” Wang said.
Wang’s comment was in response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s agreement on the weekend to designate fentanyl as a controlled substance. China has been accused of not doing enough to halt the flow of drugs and chemicals into the US that are linked to an epidemic of overdose deaths.
Wang said the agreement was aimed at underground producers and distributors, and was a positive development for legal manufacturers.
Humanwell Healthcare produces fentanyl at a subsidiary in Yichang, Hubei province, earning the company more than 2 billion yuan (US$287 million) in sales of the drug last year.