Mul­ti­ple sus­pects were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with an al­leged med­ical in­sur­ance fraud scheme or­ga­nized by As­traZeneca Chi­na em­ploy­ees, the coun­try’s Na­tion­al Health­care Se­cu­ri­ty Ad­min­is­tra­tion (NHSA) said on Sat­ur­day.

The ar­rests oc­curred af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion found ev­i­dence that staff mem­bers tam­pered with the ge­net­ic test­ing re­sults of tu­mor pa­tients in an at­tempt to de­fraud med­ical in­sur­ance funds, ac­cord­ing to the NHSA. As­traZeneca has re­port­ed sub­stan­tial growth in Chi­na de­spite the steep dis­counts it had to make in or­der to get on the coun­try’s Na­tion­al Re­im­burse­ment Drug List, with rev­enue in the coun­try in­creas­ing by 10% in Q3, amount­ing to near­ly $4.7 bil­lion for the first three quar­ters of the year.

How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny not­ed that rev­enues last year were im­pact­ed by pric­ing pres­sure as­so­ci­at­ed with the NRDL and vol­ume-based pro­cure­ment (VBP) pro­grams.

With­out pro­vid­ing much de­tail, As­traZeneca Chi­na said in a state­ment that it con­firmed through its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion back in Au­gust that “a few” of its em­ploy­ees in Shen­zhen had “al­tered or par­tic­i­pat­ed in al­ter­ing pa­tients’ test­ing re­ports,” and are sus­pect­ed of med­ical in­sur­ance fraud.

“Per our cur­rent un­der­stand­ing, these are in­di­vid­ual cas­es. The gov­ern­ment in­ves­ti­ga­tions are still on­go­ing, and the com­pa­ny hasn’t been in­formed of more de­tails,” a spokesper­son told End­points News. 

As­traZeneca Chi­na said it proac­tive­ly re­port­ed the of­fens­es to the lo­cal health­care se­cu­ri­ty bu­reau, and “took se­ri­ous dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion” against the staff mem­bers, though it’s un­clear if they’re still em­ployed at the phar­ma gi­ant. On Sat­ur­day, the NHSA said an “in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tion” had been con­duct­ed, and “all crim­i­nal sus­pects have been ar­rest­ed.”

On Dec. 27, As­traZeneca at­tend­ed a joint meet­ing with the Min­istry of Pub­lic Se­cu­ri­ty (MOPS) and the NHSA, which has urged the com­pa­ny to co­op­er­ate in the fol­low-up in­ves­ti­ga­tion, car­ry out its own in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion, “plug loop­holes in mar­ket­ing su­per­vi­sion,” and ed­u­cate its em­ploy­ees on fol­low­ing the law.

“As­traZeneca Chi­na is com­mit­ted to ful­ly im­ple­ment­ing these rec­om­men­da­tions, fur­ther strength­en­ing man­age­ment over­sight and con­tin­u­ing to ed­u­cate em­ploy­ees on the ap­plic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions, en­sur­ing that each As­traZeneca em­ploy­ee per­forms dai­ly work with a law abid­ing and com­pli­ance mind­set,” the com­pa­ny said in a state­ment.

Chi­na’s Na­tion­al Med­ical In­sur­ance Bu­reau will now work with oth­er agen­cies to car­ry out a na­tion­wide cam­paign against tam­per­ing with ge­net­ic test re­sults, ac­cord­ing to the NHSA.

The news comes near­ly three decades af­ter As­traZeneca set roots in Chi­na in 1993. Just over two years ago, the com­pa­ny un­veiled three ma­jor ini­tia­tives in the hopes of ex­pand­ing its foot­print there, in­clud­ing the cre­ation of a new R&D cen­ter and AI in­no­va­tion cen­ter in Shang­hai, and a new Health­care In­dus­tri­al Fund in part­ner­ship with Chi­na In­ter­na­tion­al Cap­i­tal Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed.

“Chi­na is rapid­ly emerg­ing as a glob­al sci­en­tif­ic pow­er­house, which is why we have tak­en this ex­cit­ing de­ci­sion to fol­low the sci­ence, by ex­pand­ing our R&D pres­ence and by work­ing with the in­vest­ment com­mu­ni­ty,” CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot said at the time.

To date, the com­pa­ny says it has in­vest­ed around three-quar­ters of a bil­lion dol­lars in Chi­nese phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­no­va­tion. And it doesn’t hurt that the Chi­nese mar­ket has added bil­lions of dol­lars to the its top line.

As­traZeneca isn’t the on­ly Big Phar­ma com­pa­ny with in­sur­ance fraud woes. Back in Au­gust 2020, Ab­b­Vie agreed to pay $24 mil­lion to set­tle an in­sur­ance fraud suit re­lat­ed to the pro­mo­tion of its cash cow Hu­mi­ra.

That set­tle­ment came near­ly four years af­ter a whistle­blow­er first re­port­ed Ab­b­Vie’s prac­tice of de­ploy­ing reg­is­tered nurs­es to vis­it pa­tients at home or call them by phone to en­sure that Hu­mi­ra pre­scrip­tions are filled. Ab­b­Vie was al­so charged with pro­vid­ing il­le­gal kick­backs to doc­tors in an at­tempt to en­cour­age them to pre­scribe Hu­mi­ra for a range of an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases.

Add AbbVie to the list of pharma companies currently facing age discrimination allegations.

Pennsylvania resident Thomas Hesch filed suit against AbbVie on Wednesday, accusing the company of passing him over for promotions in favor of younger candidates.

Despite 30 years of pharma experience, “Hesch has consistently seen younger, less qualified employees promoted over him,” the complaint states.

The notorious drug testing company Valisure, which has made a name for itself by forcing FDA’s hand with some of its safety-related uncoverings, received a letter this week after the FDA uncovered violations at its Connecticut-based testing lab in 2021.

The letter, which was sent on Dec. 5, stated that the FDA is “concerned” that Valisure was not aware of  drug supply chain security requirements.

From “Shark Tank” to direct-to-consumer generic drugs, Mark Cuban has made another inroad in the ongoing battle over prescription drug prices. His cost-plus-15% generic drug company, frequently undercutting many competitors, now has its sights set on the employer healthcare market.

Cost Plus Drugs, which originally pledged to cut out PBMs, has now partnered with the PBM EmsanaRx, majority owned by the Purchaser Business Group on Health, to launch a supplemental drug discount program designed specifically for self-funded employers, the company announced Thursday.

The FDA’s Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee will meet next Tuesday to discuss whether Cytokinetics’ potential heart drug can safely reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and heart failure in patients with symptomatic chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

The drug, known as omecamtiv mecarbil and in development for more than 15 years, has seen mixed results, with a first Phase III readout from November 2020 hitting the primary endpoint of reducing the odds of hospitalization or other urgent care for heart failure by 8%. But it also missed a key secondary endpoint analysts had pegged as key to breaking into the market.

The generics manufacturer Lupin has been given another Form 483 from the FDA this year.

US regulators inspected Lupin’s pharmaceutical manufacturing site in the town of Mandideep, India from Nov. 14 through Nov. 23, with the 14-page report marking 16 observations.

The inspection report stated that the site did not have the appropriate controls over its computer systems to ensure that changes in “master production” or records are only done by authorized personnel, along with written procedures not being established to conduct annual reviews of records associated with drug batches.