New Study Vindicates Efficacy of Roche's Blockbuster Drug Tamiflu

January 30, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor

Roche is enjoying a bit of a boost Friday, after a study in British medical journal The Lancet found that although controversial flu drug Tamiflu can cut flu symptoms by about a day, it still comes with side effects including nausea and vomiting.

The Swiss drugmaker saw its highest sales year for Tamiflu in 2009, when the swine flu pandemic swept through the global community and the World Health Organization recommended it as a treatment, raking in $3 billion in sales. It also saw a boost last quarter, when a tough flu season made the drug particularly popular.

The Lancet study is one of the most comprehensive reviews conducted yet and directly contradicts an earlier analysis by the Cochrane review that said Tamiflu’s benefits were minimal and had too many side effects. That put world health regulators on watch for more info about the drug, which is widely recommended for patients beginning to suffer flu symptoms.

“[Tamiflu] is not a perfect drug but does what you might expect of an antiviral given relatively late in the course of an acute infection,” Peter Openshaw, a respiratory infections expert at Imperial College London who was not involved in either analysis, told Reuters.

Today’s study parsed data from nine clinical trials that put Tamiflu head-to-head against a placebo in 4,328 adults who had influenza. Led by Stuart Pocock of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Arnold Monto of the University of Michigan School of Public Health found that the antiviral, known generically as oseltamivir, reduced the duration of symptoms by 21 percent compared with placebo, from 123 to 98 hours.

Trimming how long people have the flu had a major impact on both the severity of their symptoms, as well as slashed the rate of flu complications that can lead to hospitalizations.

"The safety and effectiveness of oseltamivir has been hotly debated, with some researchers claiming there is little evidence that (it) works," Monto said in statement. "Whether the magnitude of these benefits outweigh the harms of nausea and vomiting needs careful consideration."

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