Roche responds to WHO move to influenza pandemic alert phase 5

Roche tonight confirms that it has been in contact with the World Health Organization (WHO) following the announcement to move to influenza pandemic alert phase 5.

Roche has donated 5 million treatment courses of Tamiflu in 2006, consisting of a 2 million treatment course “Regional stockpile” and a 3 million treatment course “Rapid Response” stockpile. The regional stockpiles are held by the WHO at various locations around the world.

“Roche’s 3 million treatment courses donated to the WHO in 2006 are ready on 24 hour standby to be deployed to areas of need as determined by the WHO”, said Dr. David Reddy, Roche’s Global Pandemic Preparedness Leader. “We will be working through the night to do all we can to respond in a rapid, timely, and responsible manner for patients in need.”

Roche continues to work with all stakeholders to best support governments. The WHO and US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) report Tamiflu is active against this new swine flu virus A(H1N1).*

Roche believes that the world is better prepared than ever before for a possible outbreak of pandemic influenza and has, for the last five years, been working closely with Governments, Health Authorities, and Corporations on Pandemic Preparedness. To date, Roche has fulfilled Government pandemic orders amounting to 220 million treatment courses of Tamiflu.
About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest biotech company with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche’s personalised healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients.

In 2008, Roche had over 80’000 employees worldwide and invested almost 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 45.6 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information: www.roche.com.

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Notes to Editors
* H1N1 swine-flu virus causing outbreak is a new virus, antigenically very different from the seasonal A[H1N1] virus