Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG is in talks with a dozen countries, including the United States, to supply stockpiles of its Tamiflu drug to protect their populations against a possible bird flu pandemic.
“We have received orders from around 12 governments and we are in discussions with the same number again,” David Reddy, head of Roche’s Tamiflu Pandemic Taskforce, told Reuters.
Governments around the world are pre-purchasing millions of doses of the flu medicine on the advice of the World Health Organization. It is not a cure, but can reduce symptoms and may prevent the spread of infection.
The French government has ordered some 13 million doses of the drug and New Zealand took around 800,000 doses. The UK government said on Tuesday it had ordered 14.6 million doses, enough for one in four of the population.
“Each of these countries has got significant coverage with around 20 percent of their populations being covered with what they have purchased,” Reddy said. “These countries are in the lead in terms of pandemic preparedness and stockpiling.” Shares in Roche were firmer on Wednesday, trading one percent higher at 124.20 Swiss francs, as analysts anticipated more orders from governments preparing for a possible outbreak.
Discussions with the United States
“We are in detailed discussions currently with the U.S. government around this pandemic plan,” Reddy said, but declined to give an indication of when a decision might be made by U.S. authorities.
So far, the United States has only bought 2.3 million doses, which equates to less than 1 percent of the population. The UK order is worth around $384.4 million and the doses will be delivered over two years. Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimate that potential U.S. and European sales could total $3.9 billion.
Other countries that have already placed significant orders include the Netherlands, Sweden and Canada.
While the orders are one-offs, Morgan Stanley noted they come at a time when Roche is ramping up launch costs for key cancer drug Avastin.
Production quadrupled
Tamiflu, or oseltamavir, is already approved in Japan, Europe and the United States for use in two types of influenza, A and B. It generated sales of $284 million in 2004.
Roche has scaled up production of the drug but the company warns that since it takes around 12 months to produce, it may not be able to meet a surge in demand in case of a pandemic.
“We have doubled capacity already and are in the process of further doubling capacity during this year, but we have been clear that if a pandemic hit tomorrow then we would not be able to meet a surge in demand from countries suddenly coming on board,” Reddy said, urging countries to prepare in advance.
Only 47 deaths have been reported so far from the strain, known as H5N1, but the most conservative estimates say a pandemic could kill 2 to 7 million and put tens of millions of others in hospitals, if the virus mutates into a form that can pass between humans.
The WHO has identified three steps leading to a pandemic. First, the identification of a new strain of flu, then confirmation that humans can be infected and finally, the confirmation of human-to-human transmission of the virus. “Two of the three barriers have been broken. The final barrier is that it becomes more efficient in spreading from human to human,” Reddy said.
“The data that we have seen so far shows that mortality seems to be very high,” Reddy said. “It is approaching 80 percent and that is alarming.”
Flu pandemics — global epidemics of new strains of disease that kill an unusually high number of people — come on average every 27 years. The last one was in 1968-1969 and killed between one million and four million people.
