Roche reaches an agreement with the South African company Aspen for the production of a generic version of oseltamivir for Africa, as part of continued efforts to increase and speed up availability of the medicine for influenza pandemic planning worldwide.

The agreement with Aspen is focused on providing oseltamivir for pandemic use to further help to address the needs of governments and other not for profit organisations in the African sub-continent. Roche will provide technical know how (technical, pre-clinical and clinical data) to assist Aspen to help them expedite their production and the registration. The agreement also allows the supply of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) from Roche to Aspen.

David Reddy, Roche's Pandemic Taskforce Leader, commented, "We are pleased to announce the partnership with Aspen as the latest step in our scale-up efforts to meet the needs of governments in preparing for the potential public health threat posed by avian influenza. This is another demonstration of Roche's commitment to working as a collaborative and responsible partner with governments and the World Health Organization (WHO) to assist in pandemic planning."

Whilst Roche remains on schedule to meet all orders from African governments by early 2007, the collaboration with Aspen will further enhance the supply of oseltamivir for Africa. The agreement is non-exclusive and will mean that Roche and other sub-licensees will be able to work on pandemic orders within Africa.