Roche Offers Corporations ‘Insurance Plan’ for Delivery of Anti-Flu Drug

In response to the emergence of Asian bird flu in the late '90s, Swiss drug maker Roche ratcheted up production of its anti-flu drug, Tamiflu, an antiviral drug that could be used to prevent and treat influenza in the event of a flu pandemic. Business was booming, but by the middle of 2008, the Asian bird flu viruses had not infected many humans worldwide, and demand for Tamiflu had diminished. As orders for the drug slowed, supplies rose, and profits sank.

The twentieth century had previously seen three influenza pandemic attacks: In 1918 the Spanish flu killed 50 million people worldwide, 675,000 of them in the United States. Then in 1957 the death toll from the Asian flu in the United States was at least 70,000 people, and as high as 2 million worldwide. Finally, in 1968, the Hong Kong flu caused around 34,000 deaths in the United States, and approximately 7 million worldwide.

Influenza pandemics occur when viruses mutate into strains that spread easily from person to person. All viruses are capable of mutating this way, and when they do they leave people with no time to develop any, or very little, immunity; consequently, the number of infected individuals can quickly reach epidemic proportions.

Because the threat of an influenza pandemic (worldwide outbreak of disease), is always with us, and because there is at least some concern that the Asian bird flu, known as H5N1, might turn into a pandemic, the government, as a precautionary measure, maintains a stockpile of antiviral drugs, such as Tamiflu, for use until a serum to combat such a pandemic would be able to be developed.

Antivirals will certainly be a key line of defense if a pandemic should strike because they can be stockpiled in advance, and made available almost immediately. Drugs such as Tamiflu would need to be used for an estimated five months, based on current technology, before an effective pandemic vaccine could be developed and made available to the public.

However, the government's stockpile of antiviral drugs would mostly have to be used to treat people already infected, because the national stockpile is only large enough to treat a fraction of all the people in the United States; and for that reason the government advises that antivirals for preventive use will, of necessity, have to come mainly from private stockpiles, and encourages corporations to stockpile supplies of these drugs for their employees.

In late June, 2008, Hoffman-La Roche Inc., the Nutley, N.J.-based U. S. arm of the Swiss drug company, announced a new plan that will allow U.S. corporations to reserve their own supplies of its antiviral drug, Tamiflu.

Under the Roche plan corporations will pay a nominal annual fee, per course of treatment, to have Roche store, rotate, and assure current date quality, to each company's reserved stockpile of Tamiflu. The annual reserve charge is $6 per each course of treatment; a course of treatment is ten doses. Contracts are renewable annually, and if and when a company decides to take possession of the medicine, they will be allowed to purchase it at the prevailing wholesale prices. Roche guarantees delivery of reserved supplies within 48 hours under most circumstances.

Health and Human Services deputy secretary Tevi Troy held a rare joint briefing with Roche officials in late June, 2008, where he stated, "We are recognizing that, if in the worst case a pandemic were to break out, we would need help on all levels of society - not just the federal government."

The government is not subsidizing this effort by Roche in any way, but it is encouraging it, Troy said, and he commended Roche for coming up with a strategy for pandemic flu planning that supports the U.S. government's doctrine of shared responsibility between government and the private sector to protect individuals should a pandemic strike. Troy noted that if other makers of drugs or vaccines have similar plans to suggest, his office would consider them.

Response to the new program has been robust; inquires have already been received from 800 companies and orders have been placed, ranging from a few hundred, to hundreds of thousands of treatment courses, by over 300 U.S. corporations, according to a Roche spokesperson.

Aside from this program, businesses can still purchase Tamiflu outright for pre-distribution to their employees, if that is what they prefer.