Roche considers licensing companies to make oseltamivir

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.981

BMJ 2005;331:981 (29 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7523.981

News

Roche considers licensing companies to make oseltamivir

Janice Hopkins Tanne

New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

With the gradual spread of avian influenza from East Asia toEurope, many countries were this week seeking supplies of theantiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), which lessens the effectsof flu when taken at an early stage of the illness.

Cipla, an Indian company which specialises in generic drugs,said last week that it would make its own generic version ofthe drug. Cipla said it could market the drug by December andcould make a million 10 capsule courses of treatment by nextJuly, a report in New Scientist says ( 2005;188: 14).

A spokesperson for Roche, the manufacturer of oseltamivir, saidthat the company would discuss sublicensing to increase suppliesof oseltamivir, provided the companies could meet stringentmanufacturing requirements. Making oseltamivir is a year longprocess involving many steps, some of them possibly explosive,she said. "We're looking for companies to approach . . . [Full text of this article]

Add to CiteULike CiteULike Add to Complore Complore Add to Connotea Connotea Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us Add to Digg Digg Add to Reddit Reddit Add to StumbleUpon StumbleUpon Add to Technorati Technorati What's this?