A former scientist for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) recently pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets and providing them to a pharmaceutical company in China operated by her husband and supported by the Chinese government.
Lucy Xi, 44, formerly of Malvern, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal trade secrets, a Jan. 3 U.S. Department of Justice press release said. She is the fourth member of the conspiracy to plead guilty, following the pleas of Tian Xue, Tao Li and Xi’s sister Yu Xue. Her husband, Yan Mei, remains a fugitive in China.
“This defendant illegally stole trade secrets to benefit her husband’s company, which was financed by the Chinese government,” U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in the release. “The lifeblood of companies like GSK is its intellectual property, and when that property is stolen and transferred to a foreign country, it threatens thousands of American jobs and jeopardizes the strategic benefits brought about through research and development. Such criminal behavior must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Renopharma, the company founded by Xi’s co-defendants, was labeled a research and development company for cancer-fighting drugs, the release said. In actuality, it was “a repository of information stolen from GSK” funded by the Chinese government through financial support and subsidies.
Xi sent her husband a GSK document via e-mail in January 2015 which “provided a summary of GSK research into monoclonal antibodies at that time,” the release said.
“You need to understand it very well,” Xi wrote in the e-mail, according to the release. “It will help you in your future business.”
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by US Attorneys Robert J. Livermore and J. Jeanette Kang, the release said.
“Pharmaceutical firms like GSK invest staggering amounts of time and money to develop new medications and bring them to market,” Jacqueline Maguire, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division, said in the release. “When individuals steal valuable trade secrets concerning one of these drugs, it’s a threat both to that firm and beyond. After all, innovation like this propels the U.S. economy.”
