One of China's largest pharmaceutical firms, Hangzhou-based Kangliyuan Group, has been ordered to stop its operations for its alleged involvement with former head of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) Zheng Xiaoyu.

A special Central Committee for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) group is probing the alleged involvement of the president of Kangliyuan Group, Tang Xudong, with Zheng, China Business News said yesterday.

A CCDI report says Tang and Zheng shared a very good personal relationship.

Zheng, 63, was removed from his post on June 22, 2005, after being accused of taking bribes during his eight years as China's top drug watchdog. He was detained in December last year, three days before a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China heard the annual work report of CCDI, the top corruption watchdog.

Zheng became SFDA director in 1998, the year the agency was set up, and began a certification system for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).

In 2002, China adopted a single national standard for drugs, replacing the local ones. The government authorized the SFDA to approve most of the medicines before they entered the market.

Zheng worked in the drug industry for 23 years and was also once the head of a pharmaceutical factory in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, until 1994.

And after he took the reins of the SFDA, Kangliyuan Group began getting approvals for its new medicines at an "impressive" speed, the CCDI report said.

The Kangliyuan (Haikou) Group, a subsidiary that got the GMP certificate in 2002, received approvals to make about 100 kinds of new drugs a year, the report said. The group's assistant manager He Xiaohua said the group had not developed any of the new drugs. Instead, it "bought" research works from other drug institutes and floated a batch of intermediate agencies to apply for SFDA's approval before making them.

The Hainan Food and Drug Administration revoked the group's GMP certificate last week. "The CCDI probe is on, and almost all the group's operations have come to a halt," China Business News quoted He as having said.

Speaking at a political bureau meeting last week, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a thorough investigation into Zheng's case, and said all those involved in the racket should be punished.

Zheng neglected his duty, abused the administration's drug approval authority, took bribes and turned a blind eye to malpractices by relatives and subordinate officials, the meeting heard.

China Daily

(China Daily 01/31/2007 page4)