The Swiss pharmaceutical group Roche reiterated Friday it was boosting production of its anti-flu drug in agreement with global health authorities while maintaining its grip on output.
"We are in permanent contact with the World Health Organisation and we decided that the best solution is that Roche tries, with its partners, to increase production," Roche spokesman Alexander Klauser said.
Roche's comments came after a newspaper report said Taiwan wanted to produce a copy of Tamiflu for its own national emergency stockpile under licence.
The Financial Times quoted a Taiwanese health official as saying that the government had approached Roche after its National Health Research Institute produced "small quantities" of the patented drug.
"We have not been contacted at group level," Klauser said.
Roche said earlier this week that it wanted to retain overall management of the production of Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug that is regarded as a bulwark in global attempts to ward off the emergence of a more lethal and infectious pandemic strain of flu.
The company argues that the stage production process is too complicated and it would take years for another company to master full production. It has only subcontracted three phases of the ten-stage production process.
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