Get Ready Readers, and Authors. The Flu is Here!

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,Why should pharmaceuticals have all the fun? Let the publishers too profit. Ivan Illich is the author to read now. Place your orders.I am expecting Robin Cook to come up with a best seller. There is so much towrite about. Conspiracy, Pentagon, Panic, Media marketing, Murders, the Tamifluscandal and we will soon see the vaccine aftermath. If Ram Gopal Verma isdesparately seeking a hit, here's the opportunity.A book I was browsing through yesterday, "What Next?" seeks to dampen theenthusiasm by citing how the SARS was being wrongly discussed all over the worldas a conspiracy. I hope the author, a politician, will change his views now.Another book my Nostradamus side of the brain envisages is "The Confessions of aMedical Hit Man." Oh Boy! There is so much to write about, so many past scandalsto rake up and many more to predict.Before I forget there is the Business@speed of Pandemics by who else?This laboratory inspired epidemic will pull us out of the recession, if not thebad bad world. Get ready readers, and authors. The flu is here! Regards,Jagannath.Booming business in the time of swine fluNamrata Singh, Rohini Nair & AmritaNair-Ghaswalla with Mahafreed Irani TNN 12 August 2009, 02:35am IST|MUMBAI: Flick a coin â€" tails it’s pain, heads it’s gain. Conspiracytheorists will tell you arms producers live in fear of peace (when they’renot actively promoting war) and pharmaceutical companies love the idea of a goodcholera (actually, any disease will do).Swine flu has produced its share of panic, and profit. Take Roche, whichdistributes Tamiflu. By the end of the year, this Swiss pharma giant will havesold 1.2 billion pounds worth of Tamiflu tablets â€" that almost Rs 10,000crore!Readers may recall that this paper ran a big story with a big graphic a few daysago on the stampede for face masks. Today, even money won’t get you an N-95,and people are willing to pay almost anything for it because they’ve been toldit protects you from the big bad world of germs like no other masks does.In the past few days, Tamiflu and masks have been joined in the war againstswine flu by a slew of other protective ‘gear’ â€"- from vitamins,paracetamols, eucalyptus oil and alternative medicines, to liquid handsanitisers, anti-bacterial washes, immunity builders, surface cleaners andthermometers. Products that were gathering dust at the back of chemists’stores and now flying off the shelves faster than you can sneeze.As stocks run low, manufacturers and retailers have found the perfect antidoteto recession. Here’s how money is being made (legally) out of an epidemic:* Pharma companiesRoche is raking it in big-time, but others aren’t doing too badly either.Vitamins and paracetamols are in demand. Makers of anti-bacterial and alcoholichand gels and wipes (for instance, Reckitt Benckiser) and suppliers of swine flukits (like Religare) are running to keep up with demand. Ever since India’sfirst recorded H1N1 death, Religare alone has sold over 200 kits worth Rs 500each, a jump from the 700 that it sold over the last three months.With the Centre set to lift the ban on production and sale of the anti-H1N1oseltamivir drug (by companies other than Roche, which has the licence for theTamiflu brand), desi manufacturers like Cipla, Ranbaxy and Hetero Drugs arepreparing to launch more affordable, generic versions of the drug.Cipla’s joint managing director Amar Lulla told TOI: “In the past, theproduction of flu vaccines was almost unprofitable and most companies producingsuch vaccines had pulled out of the US. This time round the scene could be justthe opposite. We are awaiting the government’s call for local producers tosupply the drug,’’ Lulla told TOI.Ramesh Adige, president of Ranbaxy said: “Ranbaxy produces the genericequivalent of Tamiflu, the API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) oseltamivirand formulations. If required, Ranbaxy can provide close to a million capsulesin the next few weeks to the Indian market.Then, there’s the stampede to develop a vaccine for swine flu (oseltamivir iscurative while a vaccine would be preventive). Industry estimates suggest thatmultinationals in the fray for making the swine flu vaccine, likeSanofi-Aventis, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, amongst a host of others, areexpected to charge around $6 (approximately Rs 288) per dose although itshouldn’t cost more than $1 (Rs 48) per dose to produce it. Pharma companieswill tell you it costs billions to develop a vaccine.* ChemistsMeanwhile, Mumbaikars are turning to chemists to buy masks for protection, asalso products useful for maintaining general hygiene. “Many corporates haveplaced huge orders â€" to the tune of 1,000 â€" N95 masks. We are unable to meetthe demand,’’ said P Ferzandi, owner of Byculla Pharmacy.“The N95 masks, too, are out of stock. We’ve contacted three manufacturers,but none of them have stocks. They said they would have to import, which willtake eight to ten days, at least. In the meantime, the price is beinginflated,’’ said Prasad Danwe, general secretary, Retail and DispensingChemists Association.N95 and 99 masks are based on American standards. “We are in talks with Indianmanufacturers who will provide us with two types of masks â€" the FFP1 and FFP2.We hope to make these available to consumers by Saturday at a cost between Rs 55and Rs 60,’’ said Danwe.According to Damji Palan, owner of Laxmi Chemist, and also the president ofRetail and Dispensing Chemists Association, Mumbai, sales of products likeDettol Liquid wash, Lifebuoy hand wash, Nilgiri oil, etc have picked up in thelast two weeks.There is also a shortage of cough and cold medicines, and stocks of Meftal-P,the commonly used medication, are hard to get. People are also stocking up oncod liver oil to build up their immunity. Sources said that Universal Medicare,the company that markets Seacod, a cod liver oil capsule, has received manycalls from consumers. Seacod has witnessed a growth of 40% in the April-Julyperiod this year vis-a-vis the same period last year. “We are promoting ourbrand as a product that builds resistance against cough and colds,’’ saidthe source.* WebsitesEven Indian websites on swine have witnessed heavy traffic on Tuesday. Peoplefrom Mumbai, Pune, Chennai and Delhi are clicking away for information. Siteswith domain names dedicated to the flu in India like www.swinefluindia.com, andwww.swineflu-india.org recorded the highest traffic yesterday. “We have seenan unprecedented growth in traffic on our site. We have received a lot of mailsand our page rank on Google has improved drastically,’’ said a spokespersonof swinefluindia.com.* Consumer productsThe awareness generated in the last two weeks on the use of hand sanitisers,disposable tissues, alcohol-based disinfectants, etc has resulted in a growingdemand for these products. It’s little wonder, then, that disinfectants andhand sanitisers are out of stock.The shortage of disinfectants has been compounded by individual customers buyingup large quantities of stock. “On Monday, I managed to get a whole carton ofprotective hand wash, about 125 bottles. A customer came in and asked for 100bottles and now my stock is over, ‘’ said Dinesh Patel, proprietor of aCuffe Parade medical store.Another newly introduced category â€" skincare wipes â€" is also expected tocash in on the H1N1 epidemic. Launched a year ago, Kara wipes are yet to reachthe inflection point. Its maker, Aditya Birla group is hopeful that companieswill adopt wipes to keep their hands and face sanitised. Vijay Kaul, chiefmarketing officer, Grasim Industries (pulps and fibre) said, “We are workingon a new promotional strategy to educate people about using Kara wipes, whichcontain anti-bacterial, Triclosan.’’All it takes is just one vaccine to forever change your life. - Dawn, mother ofvaccine damaged child.