Brand Tamiflu Roche

Tamiflu and suspension contain the active ingredient oseltamivir phosphate, which is a type of medicine called a neuraminidase inhibitor. It is used to treat and prevent infection with the influenza virus.

Influenza is caused by a highly contagious virus that affects the respiratory system. The virus is passed from one person to another by coughing and sneezing. When the virus enters the body it invades cells, where it replicates to form lots of new virus particles.

These new copies of the virus are released from the cells and then move on to infect adjoining cells, where the process is repeated. After a couple of days a sufficient number of cells have been infected so that the patient feels flu symptoms such as headache, fever and general aches and pains, which continue for about a week until the body's immune system kills the virus.

In order to leave one cell and infect another, the flu virus uses a chemical helper that is found on its surface. This substance is an enzyme called neuraminidase and without it, the newly formed virus particles cannot leave the infected cells.

Oseltamivir works by binding to the neuraminidase on the surface of the virus particles and stopping it from working. When the neuraminidase helper is blocked in this way, it means that newly formed viral particles cannot be released from the infected cells. This prevents the flu virus from spreading and infecting other cells.

Oseltamivir therefore confines the infection to a smaller area. This makes the symptoms of the infection less severe and also makes it is easier for the body's immune system to kill the virus. The medicine has been shown to reduce the duration of the illness by approximately one to one and a half days and to reduce the risk of developing flu-related complications, such as chest infections that require antibiotics. It is used to treat flu and can also be used to prevent flu in people who have been in contact with someone with the virus.

• Roche’s global network for the manufacture of Tamiflu includes several Roche sites and
more than 15 external contractors located in 10 different countries around the world. These
production partners have been selected primarily on the basis of their ability to produce
substantial quantities of intermediates and finished materials in accordance with Roche's
quality standards in a relatively short time frame.
• Roche will have increased its production capacity by the end of 2006 and will then have the
capacity to produce up to 400 million treatments of Tamiflu annually, significantly
exceeding government orders of 200 million treatments received to date.
• The expansion will be achieved by a further stepwise scale-up of Roche’s production
network, both internally and together with third parties. It means a ten fold increase over
the capacity in 2004 when the decision was taken to increase production, without any firm
pandemic orders in place, in order to meet government’s needs for pandemic planning.