According to a release on the website of Roche, the agreement with Hetero is focused on providing oseltamivir for government pandemic use, and will have an immediate effect on the availability in India and developing countries both directly and through further agreements with local companies.
David Reddy, Roche's pandemic taskforce leader, commented, "As a result of a period of intense production planning, we are pleased to announce the partnership with Hetero Drugs 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 to assist in pandemic planning, " he added.
Hetero is the first company that was identified to be able to speed up agreed delivery timelines in the first half of 2006.
Following two and a half years of work, Hetero recently received approval to manufacture the medicine and have demonstrated that they meet the criteria which Roche defined in terms of technical ability, capacity and the speed of bringing that capacity on stream.
"With this agreement, Hetero is respecting Roche's and Gilead's intellectual property on Tamiflu in India," the release added.
