Leon Wang, executive vice president in charge of China and the broader Asian region, is being detained while the Chinese government is probing AstraZeneca employees, the drugmaker says.

China's investigation of AstraZeneca's top executive in the country is raising questions about the company's tactics there.

AstraZeneca said on Wednesday its China president Leon Wang had been detained by Chinese authorities and, although it did not know the reason, it did not believe it was linked to a large health insurance fraud case involving the company.

BMO Capital Markets analyst Etzer Darout in a note to investors said the insurance fraud probe represents a “headline risk” to AstraZeneca, but contends that the share selloff is “overdone” and likely a knee-jerk reaction by investors.

Two current and two former senior AstraZeneca Plc executives in the group’s China unit are under investigation in a probe into alleged breaches of laws around drug importation and data privacy, the company said.

AstraZeneca shares recorded their biggest one-day drop since March 2020 on Tuesday following a report that dozens of senior executives at its China unit could be implicated in the largest insurance fraud case in the country's pharma sector in years.

Shares of AstraZeneca dropped more than 7% yesterday after the Chinese publication Yicai Global reported that dozens of senior executives in the company's China subsidiary have been implicated in an insurance fraud case.

Astra saw £14.4bn wiped off its value after Chinese media said dozens of managers were implicated in a scandal.