Former biotech executives convicted of Genentech commercial theft – CBS San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two co-founders of a Taiwanese biotech company were convicted on Tuesday of conspiring to steal trade secrets from Genentech in a $101 million scheme, prosecutors said. .
Racho Jordanov, former CEO of JHL Biotech Inc., and former chief operating officer Rose Lin were sentenced in San Francisco federal court to one year and one day each in federal prison, the prosecutor’s office said. American.
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They pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and wire fraud.
JHL Biotech, now known as Eden Biologics, Inc., is a Taiwan-based biopharmaceutical startup. According to plea agreements, between 2011 and 2019, Jordanov used confidential Genentech information from former Genentech employees he hired to speed up and reduce production costs for generic versions of products made by the Genentech-based company. South San Francisco.
The thousands of documents allowed the company “to cheat, cut corners, solve problems, provide examples, avoid re-experimentation, eliminate costs, provide scientific assurance and otherwise assist JHL Biotech,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.
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Between 2014 and 2018, Jordanov used or told others to use Genentech information to help build JHL Biotech facilities, including a factory in China, prosecutors said.
In 2014, Lam helped Genentech senior scientist Xanthe Lam secretly work as a formulation manager for JHL Biotech and concealed payments from her, according to the plea agreements.
Lam and her husband, Allen Lam, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to steal trade secrets.
In 2016, Jordanov and Lin entered into a $101 million partnership with Sanofi SA, a French pharmaceutical company, covering up the role of stolen Genentech documents and trade secrets, prosecutors said.
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