Chinese authorities on October 16 handed out penalties totaling more than 9.1 billion yuan ($1.32 billion) to a company for the illegal production of a human rabies vaccine.

The Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Limited violated China's laws and regulations on drug management and production supervision in producing a human rabies vaccine, according to administrative penalty decision made by national and local drug authorities.

Violations included blending different batches of vaccine fluid, falsifying dates of production and using expired fluid to produce some of the batches, the document said.

The National Medical Products Administration annulled the rabies vaccine approval document and the certificates for related products from the company and imposed a fine of 12.03 million yuan.

Jilin Food and Drug Administration revoked the company's pharmaceutical production license, confiscated the illegally-produced vaccines and total income of 1.89 billion yuan from defective vaccine sales and imposed a fine of 7.21 billion yuan.

The hefty fine of 7.21 billion yuan was three times the total value of the defective vaccines produced and sold by the company.

Individuals directly responsible for the violations in the case will be banned from carrying out drug manufacturing and operating activities, and those suspected of committing crimes will face criminal charges.