Fear of the avian flu has sent public health agencies, the Pentagon, and many physicians scrambling for flu-busting Tamiflu, and it is creating a plump nest egg for certain high-ranking hawks in Washington.
Since Spring, stock prices have soared for Roche, which markets Tamiflu (Oseltimavir), and Gilead Sciences, the biotech company that developed it. According to Fortune, Gilead’s stock jumped from $35 to $47 since April.
European governments have purchased enough Tamiflu to cover roughly a quarter of Europe’s population. The Pentagon has ordered close to $60 million’s worth to cover active duty military. Congress and the White House are still hammering out a national flu management plan.
Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld was Gilead’s chairman from 1997 to 2001, and still owns at least $5 million in stock. Fortune estimates Rummy’s gleaned a cool million on the Tamiflu run. Former Secretary of State George Schultz, a member of Gilead’s board, cashed in over $7 million in Gilead stock this year.
Gilead licensed Tamiflu to Roche in 1996, and is only making 10% on Roche’s Tamiflu sales. The payoff for Gilead stockholders could be huge if the company succeeds in a bid to win back Tamiflu’s exclusive rights. Odds are against it, but it is likely Gilead’s cut will rise a good bit before the lawyers all go home.
Tamiflu has botanical roots, and it has made a star of Star Anise. Shikimic acid, a key compound for the drug, comes from this common Asian cooking/medicinal spice grown widely in China and other Bird Flu hot zones. Call it a strange twist on the old naturopathic adage that the antidote is always found near the poison.
According to the Wall Street Journal, demand for Tamiflu sparked a massive run on Star Anise in China. Prices for the whole fruit jumped 40% recently, and the cost of Shikimic acid rose 10-fold. Worldwide, several drugmakers are trying to get into the action. That wont be easy, as Roche has cornered the lion’s share of the global Shikimic acid supply, and isn’t likely to let others get to the trough.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, facing what some predict could be a global flu pandemic, has asked Roche to step aside and allow others to produce cheap, generic Tamiflu for use in poor nations. Economics aside, some public health experts have criticized Annan’s proposal, suggesting that farmers in poor Asian countries would use Tamiflu to protect or save livestock, a well-meaning move that, unfortunately, could induce viral resistance to the drug.
Fear of a flu epidemic is also stirring intense interest in vaccines. Federal agencies and clinics are stockpiling flu shots, hoping to avoid what many perceived as an embarrassing lack of vaccines last year. But this is happening at a time when a growing number of physicians, parents and, more importantly, politicians, are challenging the entire concept of widespread vaccination, contending it can trigger autism and autoimmune diseases, weakens childrens’ immune systems, and drives the emergence of more virulent pathogens.
Published science on this issue has been equivocal, but the current outcry is proving harder to ignore.
Congressman Dave Weldon, MD (R-FL), an internist and former Army physician, now on the House Appropriations Committee, recently called for Federal funding of a large study of the autism/ADHD in Amish communities, where vaccination is not accepted, compared to the general population. Rep. Weldon, a political conservative, believes mercury in vaccines is tied to autism, and has repeatedly challenged CDC director Julie Gerberding, MD, and others denying any evidence of a link. Rep. Weldon contends the question can only be answered definitively by comparing vaccinated cohorts with unvaccinated populations like the Amish.
Weldon also introduced a bill warranting removal of thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative in some vaccines, from all medical products. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb) introduced a companion bill in the Senate. Rep. Dan Burton, in a report from the House Government Reform Committee, charged “Thimerosa … in vaccines is directly related to the autism epidemic.” Environmental lawyer and Democratic favorite son Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., contends that drug companies, with FDA facilitation, have buried key data showing a thimerosal-autism link.
Vaccine makers shudder at the specter of massive vaccine-related class action lawsuits, but not to worry, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is providing a comfy security blanket in the form of the Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005. Under this law, vaccine makers would be indemnified of any liability associated with vaccines if the federal government were to declare a public health emergency—either bioterror-related or naturally-occurring epidemic—that warranted widespread vaccination. The bill passed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in October, and is now up for a full Senate vote.
