Simcere Hires Former Glaxo R&D Exec Mired In Data Scandal

Raise your hand if you remember Jingwu Zang? If not, here is a reminder. Until four months ago, he was a senior vp and head of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline in Shanghai, China, but was dismissed after the drugmaker conducted an internal probe into a scientific paper that was discovered to have contained fabricated data. He was listed as an author. The disclosure greatly embarrassed Glaxo (GSK), which also placed several other employees on leave and sought to have the paper, which was published three years ago in Nature Medicine, retracted. [UPDATE: A Glaxo spokeswoman says five employees have since left the drugmaker.] The paper, as we previously noted, examined the role of a protein called Interleukin-7 receptor in treating autoimmune disease (back story). At the time, Zang denied blame for the disputed data. “I do take responsibility for the paper. I was a corresponding author,” he told Chemical & Engineering News. “But I was not involved in the minute details.” He added that he believed that he was fired for inadvertently influencing the investigation by speaking with others involved in the paper, but was unaware the probe concerned that specific paper and that he was also a target. Just the same, there is life after such unpleasantness. Earlier this week, he was named chief scientific officer at Simcere Pharmaceutical, which is based in Nanjing. Hongquan Li, the ceo, was effusive in announcing the hiring. “With his rich industry experience and solid knowledge o...
Source: Pharmalot - Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Source Type: blogs