SciClone Reaches $12.8M Settlement With SEC Over Bribery Claims

Specialty drugmaker SciClone Pharmaceuticals will pay $12.8 million to settle SEC allegations of paying bribes and kickbacks in China to increase sales.

In a settlement agreement/cease-and-desist order issued last week, the SEC warned SciClone to avoid further alleged run-ins with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which the company’s Chinese subsidiary supposedly violated by giving foreign officials and physicians lavish gifts and taking them on expensive trips.

The document alleges that between 2005 and 2012, sales representatives for SciClone Pharmaceuticals International gave foreign officials gifts worth thousands of dollars to facilitate product approvals and took physicians on all-expenses paid trips in exchange for prescribing more SciClone products.

Under the deal, SciClone will relinquish $9.4 million in assets, pay a civil penalty of $2.5 million and an estimated $900,000 in interest penalties. The settlement includes no admission of wrongdoing on SciClone’s part. Read the agreement here: www.fdanews.com/02-05-16-SEC.pdf.