Tamiflu firm Roche hits back at doubts over drug
Updated on 09 December 2009
The makers of swine flu drug Tamiflu have dismissed doubts over its effectiveness following a joint investigation by Channel 4 News and the BMJ.
Swiss company Roche insists it did not hold back data which could have undermined a key claim about Tamiflu's use on healthy adults.
It is after scientists attempting to peer review a paper say they did not get all the information they wanted about clinical trials.
These trials were used by Professor Laurent Kaiser whose findings form the basis of Roche's claim that Tamiflu can reduce the hospitalisation of heatlhy adults who catch swine flu by 59 per cent.
In the report, broadcast on Tuesday, pandemic taskforce leader at Roche, Dr David Reddy said: "I think the figure of around 60 per cent reduction in complications, that came from this - the analysis of that was robust."
The new review was led by experts from the Cochrane Collaboration.
Dr Reddy told Channel 4 News: "It's our responsibility to ensure that patient level data is used appropriately and responsibly - and we provided the Cochrane review team with what believe to be a very normal agreement to get access to that data.
"We're very confidence in the robustness of the data, we just want to ensure its appropriate use.
"It's also very important to bear in mind that all of these clinical study reports have been provided to regulatory authorities worldwide. These authorites also reserve the right to inspect our data and processes.
"In fact regulatory authorities from two national bodies actually did that, so we're very confident. It was really a process issue with the Cochrane team that we have issues with."
The Cochrane study found Tamiflu "did not reduce influenza-related lower respiratory tract complications".
The group's scientists also said the drug was found to induce nausea while evidence of adverse reactions to the drug were "possibly under-reported".
Writing in the BMJ, they concluded: "Paucity of good data has undermined previous findings for oseltamivir's (Tamiflu's) prevention of complications from influenza."
Dr Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, said: "Governments around the world have spent billions of pounds on a drug that the scientific community now finds itself unable to judge."
A Department of Health spokesman has responded: "Our priority has always been to minimise the risk of serious illness and death from swine flu. Therefore, while there are still significant levels of H1N1 circulating, our strategy remains to offer antivirals to all patients with the illness."
More than a million courses of antivirals including Tamiflu have been given out to people across Britain since the start of the swine flu pandemic.
