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.

Two current and two former senior executives at AstraZeneca Plc are under investigation in China in an ongoing probe into alleged breaches of laws around drug importations 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.

AstraZeneca Plc shares plunged in London, erasing about £14 billion ($18 billion) of market value, amid escalating concerns over a Chinese probe into the UK drugmaker.