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Wednesday, October 12, 2005In a statement on Monday, Roche said that the production of Tamiflu was a process involving 10 steps - one of them potentially explosive - and requiring up to 12 months. 'No one can do it faster,' the company said. 'Our assumption is that it would take a generic company about three years to gear up,' the company said. 'Therefore, it does not make sense to out-license manufacturing.' Better to out-license it now, then, before there's actually a flu pandemic. This argument against expanded production, however, does make sense: But Dr. Monto said that it was not necessarily a good idea to allow broader production of Tamiflu by more countries. If Tamiflu becomes widely and inexpensively available to the general public, especially in countries where medicines are distributed with little regard for prescriptions, he warned, then Tamiflu might start being used so heavily that the bird flu virus could develop resistance to it, possibly even before an epidemic. "Be careful of what you wish for," he said. Preparing for a pandemic that may or may not happen is harder than preparing for a flood or an earthquake that may or may not happen. posted by Sydney on 10/12/2005 07:54:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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