New Zealand Gets Tamiflu Early

Despite worldwide shortages of Tamiflu the bird flu drug, New Zealand has managed to get some. The government had previously been unable to meet demand for the influenza drug and despite ordering more from Roche the Swiss based drug maker had not received more supply. Roche is at present overwhelmed by orders and is steeping up production fast by arranging licencing deals with other countries.

New Zealanders are now able to buy from pharmacies again thanks to a large consigment arriving six weeks ahead of time meaning that for the first time since November 2005 the flu busting drug can be bought. The lack of supply meant that people who required Tamiflu for regular flu were sometimes not able to get it and had to get some from hospitals. The new supply now means that pharmacists are calling up people on the waiting lists to come in and pick up their prescriptions.

Waiting lists had to be set up so that some sort of order would exist for the thousands of New Zealand citizens preparing for the bird flu pandemic. Roche said that they would only deliver to their local distributors who in turn were required to deliver to local community pharmacies. Roche also said that the increase in production had led to some economies of scale which meant that the drug was less expensive to produce than previously and so it could be sold at a price reduction of around fifteen percent. This was not necessarily going to be passed onto regular patients as the individual pharmacies set their own prices.

Roche said that they should be able to get the next order for New Zealand due in May on time and in any case the demand had reduced considerably with the last shipment.