The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche has granted its first sublicensing agreement for Tamiflu in order to fight a possible bird flu pandemic.
On Monday, the drugmaker confirmed that Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group in China has been licensed to make and distribute a generic version of Tamiflu, oseltamivir. The company is also in negotiations with other countries about production. The Shanghai group can only use the generic form of the drug for pandemic purposes within the country.
Roche has been under pressure to increase the supply of the flu drug Tamiflu. It has ramped up delivery schedules for countries with or near large bird flu outbreaks, and has allowed Vietnamese companies to encapsulate Tamiflu locally.
Tamiflu isn't patent-protected in Thailand, the Philippines or Indonesia. According to Roche, those governments are free to buy and make oseltamivir.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu has killed 70 people in Asia since 2003. There are fears of a deadly outbreak if the bird flu virus can mutate into a form that can spread among humans. If that happens, the World Health Organization estimates 7.4 million people could die.
Tamiflu has been show to improve survival possibilities for people with H5N1, but clinical data is limited.
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