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Anti-flu drug on its way to China

By Ma Zhenhuan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2009-11-18 17:25

Pharmaceutical manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), wants to move some production of its anti-flu drug Relenza to China.

"I hope that we will be able to bring some Relenza manufacturing here to China, so that we can be in a position that more of our products are for the Chinese population," Andrew Witty, GSK's CEO, said today in Shanghai.

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The drug, which won State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) approval in September for domestic sales, is one of the two main drugs used against the influenza virus, together with Roche's Tamiflu.

Witty said his company is the only one that produces both vaccines and treatment to fight the H1N1 influenza.

According to him, GSK has developed three main products around the swine flu: its vaccine, anti-viral face masks, and anti-viral medicines such as Relenza.

Around 450 million to 500 million doses of anti-swine-flu vaccine will be shipped from now to next year, including somewhere over 60 million packs of Relenza, Witty said.