October 24, 2005 | posted by Michael Baxter in Uncategorized |

Nine weeks ago we led with a story about a treatment from GlaxoSmithKline for Bird Flu. Since then, with the publicity surrounding the Tamiflu treatment from Roche reaching near pandemic levels, we have been a little bemused as to why there was such little talk about the GSK treatment Relenza. This weekend the Sunday papers went some way to readdressing the balance. The Business paper covered the GSK drug on its front page - but warned that the process of converting Relenza from its current powder to be inhaled into more potent injectable or oral forms could take two years. The Sunday Times on the other hand had GSK and bid flu on page 3 of its business section. It appeared to contradict the Business paper with the headline “Glaxo: bird flu vaccine can be ready in months,” but in fact was referring to an announcement it expects the company to make this week, that it could produce a vaccine to the virus within four months of it mutating to a form which is contagious amongst humans. The article only mentioned Relenza in passing. Meanwhile, the Observer chose to focus on Tamiflu and said the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche is accused to putting profits before people. It said that Gilead, the company which developed the Avarian flu drug and licensed it to the Swiss company, says that Roche has not marketed the drug well and has been negligent in the manufacturing of the drug - leading to product recalls. It also looked at the growing pressure the company is under to allow generic drug manufactures to produce the treatment.