GSK head of R&D China dismissed

GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) said Jingwu Zang, SVP and head of R&D China, has been dismissed after an internal investigation revealed "wrongly characterized" data in a paper he co-authored. GSK said data in a interleukin-7 (IL-7) in autoimmune disease characterized data as the results of experiments conducted with blood cells of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients "when, in fact, the data reported were either the results of experiments conducted at R&D China with normal (healthy donor) samples or cannot be documented at all, suggesting that they well may have been fabricated." Allegations of fraudulent data in the paper surfaced on several Chinese websites last week (see BioCentury Extra, June 5). ...