April 20, 2006

Roche donates 3 million Tamiflu treatments to WHO 

Roche Holding AG Wednesday (Apr 19) donated Tamiflu medication for 3 million people to the World Health Organization in a measure to ensure rapid response to any potential bird flu outbreak.

The donation is part of the drugmaker's pledge to give the WHO access to medicine for more than 5 million people. The remaining 2 million courses of treatment are slated for preventing bird flu pandemics in developing countries.

The aim is to contain an emerging outbreak from any potentially pandemic strain of bird flu by slowing or preventing its national and international spread, Roche said in an e-mailed statement.

Medicines such as Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Relenza is believed to slow the spread of bird flu, which has killed at least 109 of 194 people infected since late 2003. Sales of Tamiflu reached US$1.25 billion last year, and the company is trying to increase access to the drug to ease political pressure calling for the company to give up its patents to enable mass production.

Roche said in March it would use 15 partners, including Sanofi-Aventis SA and Clariant AG, to increase production of Tamiflu by 33 percent to 400 million treatments by year-end. It is also licensing agreements for Tamiflu production in China and India.

Outbreaks were most controllable by Tamiflu and isolation measures when the infected person is likely to spread the disease to fewer than 1.6 to 1.8 other people, according to studies carried out at Imperial College London and Emory University in Atlanta.

Half of the 3 million treatments handed over are being stored in Switzerland and the other half in the US, Roche said.