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An official at the Ministry of Public Security,
which oversees the police, gave no details about the briefing,
which is slated for Wednesday at 11 a.m. (11 p.m. EDT Tuesday).
A spokesman at GSK declined to comment.
Police detained four executives of the British drugmaker in July
in connection with the bribery allegations. They include vice
president and operations manager Liang Hong, who gave an account
on Chinese television in July of how the alleged bribery was
carried out.
Legal and industry sources had told Reuters in November that
Chinese police were likely to charge some of GSK's Chinese
executives but not the British drugmaker itself.
The company has said previously that some of its senior Chinese
executives appear to have broken the law, and that it has zero
tolerance for bribery.
Bribery between sales staff and doctors is rife in China, with
steep sales targets and low salaries for doctors creating
fertile ground for backhanders. Local managers can create strong
power bases, lawyers and industry insiders said.
A source told Reuters last month that GSK had appointed two
executives to new roles overseeing sales and marketing in China,
creating a wider gap between the two key functions.
(Reporting by Hui Li and Megha Rajagopalan; Additional reporting
by Kazunori Takada in SHANGHAI and Ben Hirschler in LONDON;
Writing by John Ruwitch; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and
Miral Fahmy)
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