People only know Tamiflu, but few knows the main ingredients for Tamiflu come from China! And I bet China's own bird flu Vaccine may have something to do with this Chinese herb, which is widely used in cooking. In Chinese, it is called Ba Jiao, or Ba Jiao Hui Xiang, or Da Liao.
"So far only one medicine has proved effective in treating human cases of H5N1. That medicine, Tamiflu, was developed by pharmaceutical company Roche, which owns the patent. Because of the pressure to "do something", politicians are considering breaking Roche's patent on the populist premise that this will increase the availability of Tamiflu.
While it makes sense to build government stockpiles of Tamiflu, in preparation for a possible outbreak of H5N1, it is far from clear that breaking the patent would be helpful - indeed the opposite is more likely to be the case for several reasons.
First, the raw ingredients for Tamiflu come from a Chinese herb which is in short supply. Unless production of the herb is increased, it will be impossible to increase production of Tamiflu. In this case, breaking the patent would have no impact on availability of the drug."
allafrica.com
Here is a picture of that Chinese herb --Star anise
patentbaristas.com
"Star anise, an unusual fruit grown in China with a pungent, licorice-like flavor, is the herb from which Tamiflu is made. It is grown in four provinces in China and "huge quantities" of its seeds are needed in order to be purified and the shikimic acid extracted at the start of a 10-stage manufacturing process which takes a year.
More commonly used in Chinese cooking and for flavoring liqueurs such as anisette and Pernod, Star Anise (Illicium verum, an evergreen tree of the Magnoliaceae family) is similar to Anise but not the same. Only star anise grown in the four provinces of China is suitable for manufacture into Tamiflu and 90 per cent of the harvest is already used by Roche.
While Roche has developed a synthetic source of acidinic acid, made from the bacterium E. coli, star anise remains the chief source. Once shikimic acid is extracted from the seeds of star anise it is converted to epoxide in a process requiring three chemical steps carried out at low temperature on seven separate sites.
We need to keep in mind that Tamiflu is not a cure for the flu but it can lessen symptoms if taken shortly after they first appear. Whileinternet firms are cashing in on the panic buying of $10-a-tablet anti-viral drug as a defense against bird flu, researchers warned last week that they have seen signs the avian flu virus is becoming resistant to the drug. UK Professor Hugh Pennington warned people risked being "ripped off" by buying a drug they did not need noting that "The risk of them getting bird flu is low. Tamiflu is not [a] wonder drug. It was given to some people in Asia and did not stop them dying."
patentbaristas.com
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And I am sure if those Multimillion-dollar foreign companies give some incentives to the Chinese farmers, and raise the buying price somewhat, the Chinese farmers would have some enthusiastic to plant more. |
