(Yicai) March 19 -- Huang Bin, the vice president of AstraZeneca China known as the "golden negotiator" for his extensive experience in pricing new drugs for the Chinese market, has left the UK-Swedish drugmaker.

Huang, who headed AstraZeneca China’s market access department, has not yet responded to Yicai’s inquiry about his next career move following yesterday's announcement of his departure.

Huang led AstraZeneca China's national medicare negotiation team for many years, playing a pivotal role in getting multiple innovative drugs added to the national reimbursement drugs list, including Enhertu (trastuzumab deruxtecan) and Truqap (capivasertib).

His departure marks another major executive change at AstraZeneca China. President Wang Lei left the company in December 2024. Lei was suspended from all duties after becoming the subject of a regulatory probe two months before.

In recent years, multinational pharmaceutical firms have faced increasingly tough reimbursement negotiations in China, including deeper price concessions even for new innovative drugs.

In a previous interview with Yicai, Huang said the negotiations should better account for the need to protect and encourage the upfront research and development investment made by innovative drugmakers, and he also called for longer patent protection for novel drugs.

Since last June, AstraZeneca China has repeatedly adjusted its organizational structure, including creating new departments and splitting existing ones. In September, the company separated its corporate affairs and market access into two parallel units, leaving Huang just in charge of market access.

Since 2023, Cambridge-based AstraZeneca has invested more than USD1.8 billion to boost its production capacity in China. In late January, the company said it plans to invest USD15 billion in the country through the end of 2030 to further expand its drug manufacturing and R&D footprint.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev