It presents a difficult target for clinical investigation.

As a result of a period of intense production planning, we are pleased to announce the partnership with Hetero Drugs as the latest step in our scale-up efforts to meet the needs of governments in preparing for the potential public health threat posed by avian influenza.

We are pleased to announce the partnership with Hetero Drugs as the latest step in our scale-up efforts to meet the needs of governments in preparing for the potential public health threat posed by avian influenza.

Companies we identified to take the capacity further will therefore allow Roche's supply network to respond to future demands from world governments.

One of the very important things to point out here is that we are not dealing with a human pandemic strain yet, thank goodness.

To state that the drugs are not suitable for routine influenza control is entirely inappropriate, is inconsistent with regulatory opinions worldwide and is not supported by the data.