It wasnt long ago that GlaxoSmithKlines Shanghai lab led the firms research efforts in neurological diseases including Parkinsons, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimers. Now, after years of setbacks in China, the company is ending neuroscience R&D in Shanghai.

Following a portfolio review and prioritization, we have decided to close our neuroscience R&D center in Shanghai and move key programs to our global R&D hub in Upper Providence [Pa.] in the U.S., where they will benefit from colocation with other pipeline R&D programs, GSK says.

GSK announced plans to invest in Shanghai in 2007, saying it would build Chinas largest R&D center operated by a multinational drug firm. To focus on neurological disorders, the center was to be staffed by hundreds of scientists under the guidance of Jingwu Zang, a leading multiple sclerosis researcher.

In 2013, however, GSK fired Zang after a paper he coauthored and published in Nature Medicine was found to contain mislabeled data. At the time, Zang vehemently denied research fraud and claimed that he and coauthors had made an inadvertent error. After the firing, GSK was soon embroiled in a much greater controversy.

After a long saga that included the discovery of video cameras in the bedroom of the companys China head, GSK apologized in September 2014 and paid a fine of $500 million to the Chinese government for bribing doctors to prescribe the companys drugs. The following year GSK laid off 110 of its China staffers for alleged ethical violations.

Last year, Min Li, who replaced Zang as head of neuroscience in Shanghai, publicly stated that GSK remained committed to its China neuroscience research. By setting up our R&D structure in this way, we are committed not only to patients in China but also to talent in China, the newspaper China Daily quoted him as saying.

Despite the retreat from neuroscience, drug R&D will go on in China, GSK insists. The China R&D development organization will continue to be based in Shanghai and is set to expand over the next two years to accelerate the development of new medicines, the firm says. We remain committed to China and will focus our R&D efforts in China on the needs of China, at both our Shanghai site and our Institute for Infectious Diseases & Public Health in Beijing.

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GSK to end neuroscience R&D in China - Chemical & Engineering News