US drugs firm 'didn't cooperate'

US pharmaceutical producer Baxter failed to cooperate with Chinese experts during a field investigation of its heparin product, which is alleged to have been linked to the deaths of 81 people in the United States, a Chinese official said yesterday.

"We express deep regret for that," Jin Shaohong, deputy director of the China National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and Biological Products, said.

"Requests to test samples of the problem drug have been denied and we don't understand why," he said.