Originally published October 25 2005
Swiss pharmaceutical company will benefit from bird flu
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Basel-based Roche, which owns licensing and development rights to Tamiflu, stands to make an enormous profit over the next two years, but U.S. officials are threatening to pass legislation that would allow generic production of the drug if Roche doesn't step up its production of Tamiflu.
For the obsessively guarded, conservatively dressed and unflamboyant Oeri, Hoffman and Sacher families, avian flu could be good news.
Over the next two years, the heirs of Fritz Hoffman, founders of Roche, one of the world's most powerful pharmaceutical companies, and who already rank as among the world's richest families, could see their combined �10 billion fortune reach giddy heights.
Twenty members of the founding family control Roche, which industry analysts estimate will benefit from the Tamiflu drug thought to relieve the symptoms of avian flu, with extra profits of �500 million this year and �1bn next.
As avian flu spreads from south east Asia into Europe, sparking fears of a worldwide epidemic that medical experts say could claim 50 million lives, Roche, famous as the company behind the Valium tranquilliser, appears poised to clean up.
The Basel-based company is already the fastest growing drugs firm in the world with a share performance to match.
It was US biotech firm Gilead that developed Tamiflu.
But nine years ago, Gilead signed a development and licensing agreement with Roche.
But as legal action rumbles, Roche faces other possibly more serious threats.
Much of its profits are due to its 55 per cent stake in Genentech, the US biotechnology company behind targeted cancer drugs such as MabThera and Avastin.
It has long been thought that this was a prelude to a merger that would produce a national Swiss champion.
While the pharmaceuticals industry emerged in Europe with aspirin being discovered at Bayer in Germany, its centre of gravity has shifted to the US, attracted by its research scientists and lack of price controls.
It was fined more than $500m by US and EU competition regulators.
The firm has also been singled out by health campaigners for dragging its feet in allowing Aids-devastated countries in Africa to get access to vital medicines.
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