Flu Drug Sales Take Off

Roche earnings offered hope to the scores of biotech companies working on H1N1 treatments. The big pharma firm, which makes most of its money from cancer treatments, profited from the spread of the flu.

Roche raised its 2009 sales guidance for the second time this year, after reporting a better-than-expected 9.7% rise in third-quarter sales, mainly driven by orders for its anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

The flu is big business every year as people get shots to protect them from annual strains. This year those sales are being enhanced by fear that H1N1 could become a pandemic. The WHO has said that nearly one-third of the world’s population could be infected.

H1N1 has not been particularly deadly, at least not so far. It is hard to say whether a more virulent strain will evolve this year. But, the swine flu is expected to cost businesses around the world hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity as workers with the disease stay home or go to hospitals. At small firms there is a chance that every employee could be infected. The global economic recovery is fragile enough that a blow to production and consumer activity could prove to be a setback.

The H1N1 outbreak is also expected to be a burden on the healthcare system as sick patient visits to doctors and hospitals rise sharply.

At least Roche is making money on the calamity.

Douglas A. McIntyre