April 30, 2007

Roche to scale down production of flu drug Tamiflu

Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding AG said Thursday it is reducing production of its drug Tamiflu as supply exceeds demand in worldwide markets.

Tamiflu is one of the best known drugs for treating bird flu outbreaks.

Roche has capacity to produce 400 million treatment courses of the drug annually, but it has orders for just 250 million courses from governments and the World Health Organization. It has already delivered 210 million courses of these orders.

William Burns, chief executive officer of Roche Pharmaceuticals division, said if production is halted tomorrow, it would still be able to meet current demand and demand for the next year.

The company's head of global technical operations Jan Koeveringe, said the company will implement the cut, but it will keep buffer stock of ingredients to react effectively in the case of outbreaks.

However, cranking up production may take up to four months, he said.

About 80 countries have stockpiles of the drug.

As bird flu spread rapidly in 2005 and 2006, Roche partnered other manufacturers and licensed the process to companies in bird flu hit countries such as China, India and South Africa to increase the production of the drug 15-fold.

Roche can now have the capacity to meet any foreseeable demand. The question now is how prepared a government wants to be, Burns said.