Kimia Farma eyes Tamiflu retail operations

Kimia Farma eyes Tamiflu retail operations

Phelim Kyne, Dow Jones/Jakarta

Indonesian pharmaceutical firm Kimia Farma will lobby the government to consider lifting a ban on retail sales of the H5N1 avian influenza drug Tamiflu, a senior executive said.

Kimia Farma, which is 90 percent state-owned, already has a small stockpile of Tamiflu that it had hoped to market through its nationwide chain of 320 retail outlets, Managing Director Gunawan Pranoto told Dow Jones Newswires on Friday.

However, the sales plans are on hold now after the government said on Thursday that only 44 state hospitals will be allowed to distribute Tamiflu.

"I want to contact the director general of (Indonesia's) Center for Disease Control and the health minister to see if hopefully we can provide Tamiflu in (our) pharmacies," Pranoto said.

He added that the company, which also produces 250 generic and herbal medications for domestic consumption, hopes the Ministry of Health will reconsider its decision to limit the sale of Tamiflu to improve consumer safety and convenience.

Tamiflu is Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche Holding AG's branded formula of the drug Oseltamivir, which has shown promise in treating avian flu in humans.

Kimia Farma's Tamiflu distribution aspirations reflect how businesses are responding to heightening public concern about the potential health threat posed by H5N1.

The health ministry said on Thursday that the country has recorded four confirmed human H5N1 infection cases since July, including three confirmed fatalities. Those deaths have contributed to a total of at least 62 human deaths from the illness in the region since 2003.

International health authorities caution that Indonesia rivals Vietnam and Cambodia as a potential weak link in the global effort to prevent or contain a possible future outbreak of a more deadly human variant of H5N1.

Java and Bali have high and extremely dense chicken populations that make growth in human H5N1 cases inevitable, WHO Representative for Indonesia Georg Petersen said last month.

Demand for Tamiflu in Indonesia already exists. Numerous Jakarta-based foreign corporations are preparing stockpiles for their staff to prevent disruptions in their operations in the event that H5N1 becomes a human epidemic.

"I think that many people and companies are looking at having Tamiflu or getting a source of it if it gets to the point of being a threat to humans," a Jakarta-based western diplomat told reporters on Thursday.

Pranoto said consumer access to Tamiflu through retail pharmacy outlets would help ensure rapid distribution of the drug in case of possible human H5N1 infections.

"Tamiflu is effective only one or two days after the person has flu symptoms," he said.

"If we can provide (Tamiflu) in our outlets...it would be part of our social mission to allow consumer access to this product."