Roche to donate 20 million doses of anti-bird flu drug to WHO

International pharmaceutical firm Roche announced yesterday that it will donate another 20 million doses — representing two million courses of treatment — of its patented anti-bird flu drug oseltamivir to the World Health Organization (WHO) to help in the global war against the disease.

This brings to 5.125 million the treatment courses made available to the WHO. Roche made previous donations in 2004 and in August 2005.

William Burns, chief of Roche Pharma’s executive office division, said the company is "working as a collaborative and responsible partner with governments and the WHO to assist in pandemic planning, including stockpiling of oseltamivir," which sells by the brand name of Tamiflu.

"We are pleased to be able to further increase our donation to the WHO and help establish regional stockpiles," he said.

Last year’s donation was stored centrally but the two million treatment courses will be stored as regional stockpiles in locations that will be identified by the WHO.

Roche said it has double production capacity in 2004 and 2005 to meet the growing demand for the anti-viral drug as governments continue to plan to prevent a bird flu pandemic.

The company assured the public that it would be able to produce over 300 million treatment courses by 2007, an increase of more than tenfold over its capacity in 2004. — Sheila Crisostomo