Ex-Biotech Executives Sentenced for Genentech Trade Theft

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (AP) — Two co-founders of a Taiwan biotechnology company were sentenced Tuesday for plotting 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 a year and a day each in federal prison, the U.S. attorney’s office said.

They pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit trade secret theft and wire fraud.

JHL Biotech, now known as Eden Biologics, Inc., is a biopharmaceutical startup based in Taiwan. According to plea agreements, between 2011 and 2019, Jordanov used confidential Genentech information from ex-Genentech workers he hired to speed up and reduce costs for producing generic versions of products made by the South San Francisco-based company.

The thousands of documents allowed the company “to cheat, cut corners, solve problems, provide examples, avoid further experimentation, eliminate costs, lend scientific assurance, and otherwise help JHL Biotech,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement.

Between 2014 and 2018, Jordanov used or told others to use Genentech information to help in the construction of JHL Biotech facilities, including a factory in China, prosecutors said.

In 2014, Lam helped Xanthe Lam, a principal scientist at Genentech, to secretly work as head of formulation for JHL Biotech and concealed payments to him, according to the plea agreements.

Lam and her husband, Allen Lam, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets.

In 2016, Jordanov and Lin agreed to a $101 million partnership with Sanofi S.A., a French pharmaceutical company, by concealing the role of the stolen Genentech documents and trade secrets, prosecutors said.