Beijing: A court fined British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline 3 billion yuan ($492 million) and sentenced its British former country manager and others to prison on Friday for bribing doctors and hospitals to use its products, a state news agency reported.
The fine was the biggest ever imposed by a Chinese court, the Xinhua News Agency said.
The case, which was first publicized in mid-2013, highlighted the widespread use of payments to doctors and hospitals by sellers of drugs and medical equipment in a poorly funded health system that Chinese leaders have promised to improve.
The former country manager, Mark Reilly, and others were sentenced to two to four years by a court in the central city of Changsha, according to Xinhua.
It gave no details of the prosecution's case and didn't say exactly how many people were sentenced.
But the police ministry said in May that Reilly was accused of operating a "massive bribery network." It said investigators believed Reilly ordered his salespeople beginning in January 2009 to pay doctors, hospital officials and health institutions to use GSK's products.
