Roche announced the initiation of the Tamiflu Reserves Programme (TRP) for developing economies. The programme, which is effective immediately, will serve to ensure that Tamiflu (oseltamivir) is available to many governments and patients in developing nations for use when the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an influenza pandemic, or for the management of a novel influenza strain defined by WHO that has significant and current pandemic potential.

Under the TRP programme, Roche will produce and store Tamiflu pandemic stockpiles for specified developing countries at a significantly reduced price with the cost spread over a number of years. Roche will then ship the stockpile to the governments of countries concerned when an influenza pandemic has been announced, or in the event of a public health emergency, upon request from the governments concerned. The countries can exercise their option to purchase the product at any time.

"This new programme is a further complement to the initiatives taken by Roche to address access to Tamiflu," said William M Burns, Roche Pharma CEO. "While we are offering this programme to the WHO for Tamiflu, this programme is not proprietary to Roche which gives the WHO the opportunity to apply its fundamentals to other antivirals, vaccines, as well as medical supplies."

The full price per pack of 10 Tamiflu capsules, excluding any local duties, taxes or tariffs, is 5 to 6 Euros per 75 mg pack, 3 to 3.65 Euros per 45 mg pack, and 2 to 2.55 Euros per 30 mg pack. Tamiflu would be stored until time of shipment by Roche under controlled conditions thus assuring quality and security. The exact price, within the ranges provided above, will be dependent upon the period of storage requested by the government or UN organisation concerned.

"Currently only six of the world's countries listed as low income have a stockpile of Tamiflu which equates to 0.02 per cent coverage for low income economies," said David Reddy, Global Pandemic Preparedness Task Force leader. "This programme enables these countries to reserve Tamiflu for pandemic preparedness for their citizens at a significantly reduced price with the cost of purchase spread over the shelf life of the product thus trying to offer access with affordability. The programme also addresses issues of controlled storage and security for developing nations where this may otherwise be an issue."

The countries who would qualify for this programme would be those countries who are members of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) minus India. Roche is in discussions with agencies to establish how orders would be coordinated by a UN partner agency such as the WHO or UNICEF and potential sources of funding would be the World Bank, donor agencies, foundations and the countries themselves.

In addition to the offering of the TRP, Roche has taken several steps to address access to Tamiflu worldwide including:

Replenishment of the WHO donation of 5.65 million treatments of Tamiflu Tiered pricing for Tamiflu distinguishing between developed and developing countries The issuing of sub licenses for the manufacturing of oseltamivir to Hetero in India, Shanghai Pharma and HEC in China as well as a technology transfer to Aspen Pharmaceuticals in South Africa A company policy that we do not file or enforce patents for Tamiflu in the Least Developed Countries enabling these countries to take local action to source anti-virals.