Lilly staff ‘divulged secrets’
pharmafile | October 10, 2013 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | China, bribery, lilly
Two former staff from Eli Lilly & Company have been accused in a US court of passing on industrial secrets to a Chinese competitor.
At the hearing at the District Court in Indianapolis, Guoqing Cao and Shuyu Li – both US citizens although born in China – were accused of giving the information to pharma firm Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine.
Based in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, the company has two more facilities in China and a base in New Jersey.
Lilly says the trade secrets – which it says relate to research into diabetes, cancer and heart conditions – represented a decade of work and have a value of $55 million.
Both of the accused are being held in jail until their trial on the grounds that they are a flight risk to China. Another man is under investigation for his involvement but has not been arrested.
The US manufacturer insists that the alleged theft, ‘while very serious’, has not significantly damaged R&D operations or the company’s pipeline.
But in a sector where intellectual property is crucial to the success of firms, any suggestion of industrial espionage is taken seriously and Lilly has been insistent that it will treat other alleged breaches in the same way.
US attorney Joe Hogsett said: “Stolen trade secrets account for billions of losses for American companies throughout our nation.”
“Lilly will aggressively pursue every legal remedy to protect and safeguard its scientific discoveries,” added Lilly senior vice president Michael Harrington.
“This includes assisting law enforcement in prosecuting and holding accountable those attempting to steal Lilly’s valuable research. The confidential information these former employees are accused of stealing relates to early stage clinical development of potential new medicines,” he concluded.
If nothing else, the case casts a different light on relations between China and the pharma industry: the two have been inextricably linked in the media in the past few months as a string of bribery probes have brought the spotlight on western companies operating there.
There has also been a broad attempt by the Chinese government to police what it sees as irregularities in the way that pharma prices its drugs in the country.
Bayer HealthCare, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline are among the big names involved in high profile investigations in China – although domestic firms have also seen their activities scrutinised by the authorities.
Adam Hill
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