BEIJING – A former executive of drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline and four Chinese co-defendants have been sentenced to prison in a bribery case but may never have to serve that time.

GSK (NYSE: GSK) also issued an apology through its GSK-China website.

In a statement, GSK Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty said the company remained committed to the Chinese market and called the case “deeply disappointing.”

“Reaching a conclusion in the investigation of our Chinese business is important, but this has been a deeply disappointing matter for GSK. We have and will continue to learn from this,” Witty said. “GSK has been in China for close to a hundred years and we remain fully committed to the country and its people. We will continue to expand access to innovative medicines and vaccines to improve their health and well-being. We will also continue to invest directly in the country to support the government’s health care reform agenda and long-term plans for economic growth.”

GSK also is under investigation in other countries. The British and U.S. governments have launched inquiries into the Chinese case as well.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said Briton Mark Reilly and his Chinese co-defendants were given a three-year reprieve at their sentencing Friday. It said the court granted leniency because they confessed. The verdicts were announced after a one-day, closed-door trial, according to Chinese media.

The court fined GSK 3 billion yuan ($492 million) for bribing doctors and hospitals to use its products. The fine is the largest such penalty ever imposed by a Chinese court.

The amount is the same that Chinese officials said GSK had paid to travel agencies to funnel bribes to doctors and other officials.

In other cases, Chinese convicts have been spared prison if they are deemed to have reformed during their reprieve.

Xinhua said Reilly also was sentenced to be deported, which might mean he is sent out of China before he would have to serve prison time.

“Reilly will be deported so he won’t be in detention in China,” an unnamed source with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters.

The verdicts came after the scandal erupted in July 2013.

The police ministry said in May that Reilly was accused of operating a “massive bribery network.” It said Reilly ordered salespeople beginning in January 2009 to pay doctors, hospital officials and health institutions to use GSK’s products.

Authorities said that resulted in several billion yuan (hundreds of millions of dollars) in “illegal revenue.”

Glaxo had said earlier the employees acted without its knowledge and violated its policy.

Such informal payments pervade China’s dysfunctional health system. Low salaries and skimpy budgets drive doctors, nurses and administrators to make ends meet by accepting money from patients, drug suppliers and others. The Glaxo case brought the flow of illicit money to international attention, but within China the practice is common knowledge.

Many blame a system in which China’s hospitals nearly all are state-run but get too little money from Beijing. Most of the country’s 2.3 million doctors are hospital employees and are barred from adding to their income by taking on second jobs.

Doctors and other employees accept money to move patients up waiting lists for surgery or to use more expensive drugs. Bribes can distort treatment by encouraging overuse of expensive drugs or procedures.

The ruling Communist Party has promised higher health spending as part of efforts to spread more of China’s prosperity to its poor majority. But with a population of 1.3 billion, the cost of a full-scale overhaul will be daunting.

GSK had announced in June 2013 that it conducted a four-month investigation of allegations its sales staff in China were bribing doctors and found no wrongdoing. The company said it acted on an anonymous complaint.

Just three weeks later in July 2013, police announced accusations that top GSK managers in China had carried out a lengthy and widespread campaign of bribery.

Almost immediately, the case took a bizarre turn when two private investigators who worked for Glaxo, a Briton and an American, were detained on charges of illegally trafficking in personal details about Chinese citizens. Authorities gave no indication the cases were connected.

GSK said the investigators were hired to look into a security breach, not bribery. British news reports cited a note from the Briton, Peter Humphrey, to friends that said he found during his investigation that the bribery accusations were true.

Humphrey and his partner and wife, Yingzeng Yu, were sentenced last month to 2 ½ and two years in prison, respectively.

GSK announced in December 2013 that it would stop offering financial support to doctors and other health care professionals to promote its products.

The police investigation found that GSK employees funneled as much as 3 billion yuan ($490 million) through travel agencies and consulting firms, which kicked back some of that money for use as bribes. Police have not made clear how much was paid out in bribes.

Investigators said the scheme appeared to be aimed at evading GSK’s internal controls meant to prevent bribery.

A second foreign drugmaker, AstraZeneca, said in July 2013 that police in Shanghai were investigating one of its salespeople.

In a separate case, China’s biggest drug distributor, Sinopharm Group Ltd., said in January that two former executives were the target of a corruption investigation.

[GSK operates its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, N.C.]