Two
pharmaceutical companies on Sept. 17 denied a report saying they had splurged
50 billion yuan (US$8.1 billion) on the purchase of a traditional Chinese
medical formula that is touted as a cure for liver cancer, the Guangzhou-based
21st Century Business Herald reports.
The paper
said a Hong Kong merchant who claimed he represented "Germany-based US
pharmaceutical giant Merck" tried to buy a patent for a prescription for a
liver cancer treatment from the Anhui-based Jinfang Huaixia Traditional Chinese
Medicine Research Center.
The report
was first published by the website of the People's Daily on Sept. 9 before it
made the rounds of several media outlets.
The report
has created a headache for international pharmaceutical companies which use the
name Merck.
"Although
our headquarters are indeed in Darmstadt, Germany, we are not an American
enterprise," a spokesperson for Merck Serono said, adding that the company
is not aware of the merchant in question and has never bought such a
prescription.
The US
pharmaceutical company Merck, known as Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) outside
the United States and Canada, stated, "The headquarters of our company is
in New Jersey in the United States, not in Germany."
Health
authorities in Anhui meanwhile said they have no registration information on
Jinfang Huaixia Traditional Chinese Medicine Research Center, according to the
report.
US company
MSD ranked 207th on the list of the world's top 500 companies in 2012, with net
profits of 39.51 billion yuan (US$6.42 billion).
German firm
Merck Serono meanwhile registered losses of €151 million (US$201.53 million)
last year. The two companies' net profits are both lower than the 50 billion
yuan (US$8.13 billion) offered for the prescription.
The
formula, according to the report, is one of a series of "super"
traditional Chinese prescriptions developed by the research center. Another
prescription obtained an exclusive patent in 2001 and "has been sent to
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China" ahead of its
application for the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Zhang Ping,
an alleged director of the center, was quoted as saying that Zhang Tianzheng
was the man who had developed the prescriptions. The cancer cure was claimed to
have an "instant" effect on liver cancer patients and could also be
used to treat multi-organ failure.
Many
internet users have compared Zhang Tianzheng to Wang Lin, a man whose dubious
claims to be a qigong master with healing powers have made him a wealthy and
controversial figure.
Some also
called for legal liability for the media outlets that spread the news,
according to a report by Global Times, a tabloid published under the auspices
of People's Daily.
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