gsk downplaying news, page-4

re: sales of relenza/can gsk be believed So what happened to the 2 M courses sold to Germany, Holland and the US (the left over warehouse stock)? Why has this not been booked in the quarter worth some $4-5 M to BTA? They already said that this was all they had available. So either they sold more that has not yet been booked or they had a lot less than previously asserted and had to make it. Either way the GSK story is inconsistent, a not unusual situation whenever they are part of the equation.

With respect to the earlier assertion of Garnier that they would produce 20 M courses in France. It may be that they have not introduced any new production lines at all as yet, just packing facilities ie that extraordinarily difficult technical task of mixing 5 mg zanamivir powder with 5% lactose powder in a foil blister pack. I bet there are very few countries in the world with those facilities!! And yet they clearly intimated they were engaged in expanding facilities in Boronia and "several" in the UK. If these are not actually producing zanamivir directly then I call that a deliberate lie as they knew how it would be received.

As a worst case it may even be that a single line is producing 5 M courses in a 4 month production run, thus 15 M in a year. If that is the case then they are nothing short of criminally negligent in not bringing other capacity on line much earlier - an even better reason to transfer the license from them. Even a tripling to a miserable 45 M next year (by GSK production alone) will do nothing to alleviate demand or need, which is running in the hundreds of millions for the obvious reason that the required Tamiflu dosage is now increased so proportionately reducing the size of the effective stockpile.

As others have stated here on numerous occasions, private demand will easily exceed public stockpiling, if the drug is available. Why is GSK dragging its feet on this issue and not rapidly expanding production? The addition of 6 putative third party producers added to 3 GSK lines will alleviate the problem to an extent but even this may only result in total production later this year or next at an annual 135 M or so, assuming similar production capacity/line, still well short of need.

And BTA management are openly thinking of GSK with respect to LANI? Are they serious or is this a ploy to help settle the dispute?