Hoffmann-La Roche
Encyclopedia
F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. is a Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 global health-care company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceutical
Pharmaceutical company
The pharmaceutical industry develops, produces, and markets drugs licensed for use as medications. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to deal in generic and/or brand medications and medical devices...

s and Diagnostics
Roche Diagnostics
Roche Diagnostics Division is a subsidiary of Hoffmann-La Roche which manufactures equipment and reagents for research and medical diagnostic applications. Internally, it is organized into five major business areas: Roche Applied Science, Roche Professional Diagnostics, Roche Diabetes Care, Roche...

. Its holding company
Holding company
A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...

, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

The company headquarters are located in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 and the company has many sites around the world - including: Nutley, NJ, Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...

, Pleasanton
Pleasanton, California
Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, incorporated in 1894. It is a suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area located about east of Oakland, and west of Livermore. The population was 70,285 at the 2010 census. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest middle-sized city in...

, Branchburg, Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, Florence, South Carolina
Florence, South Carolina
-Municipal government and politics:The City of Florence has a council-manager form of government. The mayor and city council are elected every four years, with no term limits...

, Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...

 and Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...

 in the US, Welwyn Garden City
Welwyn Garden City
-Economy:Ever since its inception as garden city, Welwyn Garden City has attracted a strong commercial base with several designated employment areas. Among the companies trading in the town are:*Air Link Systems*Baxter*British Lead Mills*Carl Zeiss...

 and Burgess Hill
Burgess Hill
Burgess Hill is a civil parish and a town primarily located in the Mid Sussex district of West Sussex, England, close to the border with East Sussex, on the edge of the South Downs National Park...

 in the UK, Clarecastle
Clarecastle
Clarecastle is a village located just south of Ennis, in County Clare, Ireland. Over the past ten years the village has a rapidly increasing population due to its close proximity to Ennis, Shannon and Limerick, and also less than an hour away from Galway city....

 in Ireland, Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

 and Penzberg
Penzberg
Penzberg is a town in the Weilheim-Schongau district, in Bavaria, Germany. It is located near Munich, and had a population of 16,126 in 2005. A historic coal mining town, Penzberg today is known for its pharmaceutical industries.-History:...

 in Germany, Mississauga and Laval
Laval, Quebec
Laval is a Canadian city and a region in southwestern Quebec. It is the largest suburb of Montreal, the third largest municipality in the province of Quebec, and the 14th largest city in Canada with a population of 368,709 in 2006...

 in Canada, Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

 in China, and Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, Brazil.

The company also owns the American biotechnology company Genentech
Genentech
Genentech Inc., or Genetic Engineering Technology, Inc., is a biotechnology corporation, founded in 1976 by venture capitalist Robert A. Swanson and biochemist Dr. Herbert Boyer. Trailing the founding of Cetus by five years, it was an important step in the evolution of the biotechnology industry...

, which is a wholly owned affiliate, and the Japanese biotechnology company Chugai Pharmaceuticals
Chugai Pharmaceutical Co.
Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary drug manufacturer operating in Japan controlled by Hoffmann–La Roche, which owns 52% of the company...

 as well as the Tucson, Arizona based Ventana.

Roche's revenues during fiscal year 2010 were CHF 47.49 billion. Descendants of the founding Hoffmann and Oeri families own slightly over half of the company, with Swiss pharma firm Novartis
Novartis
Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...

 owning a further third of its shares.

F. Hoffmann–La Roche is a full member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations
European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations
European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations is a Brussels-based trade union founded in 1978 representing the research-based pharmaceutical industry operating in Europe....

 (EFPIA).

History

Founded in 1896 by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche
Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche
Fritz Hoffmann, the founder of Hoffmann-La Roche was born in Basel, Switzerland on 24 October 1868, and died on 18 April 1920. His family were wealthy business people, and provided both employment experience and investment at the beginning of his business career...

, the company was early on known for producing various vitamin
Vitamin
A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient in tiny amounts by an organism. In other words, an organic chemical compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. Thus, the term is conditional both on...

 preparations and derivatives. In 1934, it became the first company to mass produce synthetic vitamin C
Vitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...

, under the brand name Redoxon
Redoxon
Redoxon, first marketed to the general public in 1934, is the brand name, and the original name, of the first artificially synthesized ascorbic acid ....

. In 1957 it introduced the class of tranquilizer
Tranquilizer
A tranquilizer, or tranquilliser , is a drug that induces tranquility in an individual.The term "tranquilizer" is imprecise, and is usually qualified, or replaced with more precise terms:...

s known as benzodiazepine
Benzodiazepine
A benzodiazepine is a psychoactive drug whose core chemical structure is the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring...

s (with Valium and Rohypnol being the best known members). Its acne
Acne vulgaris
Acne vulgaris is a common human skin disease, characterized by areas of skin with seborrhea , comedones , papules , pustules , Nodules and possibly scarring...

 drug isotretinoin
Isotretinoin
Isotretinoin, INN, is a medication used mostly for cystic acne. It was first developed for brain, pancreatic and other cancers. It is used to treat harlequin-type ichthyosis, a usually lethal skin disease, and lamellar ichthyosis. Its effects are systemic and nonselective...

, marketed as Accutane and Roaccutane, also used as a form of chemotherapy
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....

 for some cancers, has been linked with a number of severe side effects and remains highly controversial but highly effective at the same time. Roche has also produced various HIV test
HIV test
HIV tests are used to detect the presence of the human immunodeficiency virus , the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , in serum, saliva, or urine. Such tests may detect antibodies, antigens, or RNA.- Terminology :...

s and antiretroviral drug
Antiretroviral drug
Antiretroviral drugs are medications for the treatment of infection by retroviruses, primarily HIV. When several such drugs, typically three or four, are taken in combination, the approach is known as Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy, or HAART...

s. It bought the patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

s for the polymerase chain reaction
Polymerase chain reaction
The polymerase chain reaction is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence....

 technique in 1992. It manufactures and sells several cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 drugs.

In 1976, an accident at a chemical factory in Seveso
Seveso
Seveso is a town and comune in the Province of Monza and Brianza, in the Region of Lombardy. The economy of the town has traditionally been based around the furniture industry....

, Italy owned by a subsidiary of Roche caused a large dioxin contamination; see Seveso disaster
Seveso disaster
The Seveso disaster was an industrial accident that occurred around 12:37 pm July 10, 1976, in a small chemical manufacturing plant approximately north of Milan in the Lombardy region in Italy...

.

In 1982, the United States arm of the company acquired Biomedical Reference Laboratories for US$163.5 million. That company dated from the late 1960s, and was located in Burlington, North Carolina
Burlington, North Carolina
Burlington is a city in Alamance and Guilford counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the principal city of the Burlington, North Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Alamance County, in which most of the city is located. The population was 49,963 at the 2010...

. That year Hoffmann–La Roche then merged it with all of its laboratories, and incorporated the merged company as Roche Biomedical Laboratories, Inc. in Burlington. By the early 1990s, Roche Biomedical became one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the United States, with 20 major laboratories and US$600 million in sales.

On April 28, 1995 Hoffmann–La Roche sold Roche Biomedical Laboratories, Inc. to National Health Laboratories Holdings Inc. (which then changed its name to Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings). In 1994, Roche acquired Syntex
Syntex
Laboratorios Syntex SA was a pharmaceutical company formed in Mexico City in 1944 by Russell Marker to manufacture therapeutic steroids from the Mexican yam....

.

On 12 March 2009 Roche agreed to fully acquire Genentech
Genentech
Genentech Inc., or Genetic Engineering Technology, Inc., is a biotechnology corporation, founded in 1976 by venture capitalist Robert A. Swanson and biochemist Dr. Herbert Boyer. Trailing the founding of Cetus by five years, it was an important step in the evolution of the biotechnology industry...

, in which it had held a majority stake since 1990, after 8 months of negotiations. As a result of the Genentech acquisition, Roche closed its Palo Alto based research facilities and moved them to Nutley while the US Headquarters in Nutley was moved to Genentech's facility in South San Francisco. Genentech became a wholly owned subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...

 group of Roche on 25 March 2009.

Creation of the first anti-depressant

In 1956, Iproniazid
Iproniazid
Iproniazid is a hydrazine drug used as an antidepressant. It acts as an irreversible and nonselective monoamine oxidase inhibitor . Though it has been widely discontinued in most of the world, it is still used in France.- History :Iproniazid was the first antidepressant ever marketed...

 was accidentally created during an experiment while synthesizing Isoniazid
Isoniazid
Isoniazid , also known as isonicotinylhydrazine , is an organic compound that is the first-line antituberculosis medication in prevention and treatment. It was first discovered in 1912, and later in 1951 it was found to be effective against tuberculosis by inhibiting its mycolic acid...

. Originally, it had been intended to create a more efficient drug at combatting Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

. Iproniazid
Iproniazid
Iproniazid is a hydrazine drug used as an antidepressant. It acts as an irreversible and nonselective monoamine oxidase inhibitor . Though it has been widely discontinued in most of the world, it is still used in France.- History :Iproniazid was the first antidepressant ever marketed...

, however, revealed to have its own benefits; some people felt it made them feel happier. It was withdrawn from the market in the early 1960s due to toxic side-effects.

Vitamin price fixing

Stanley Adams
Stanley Adams (whistleblower)
Stanley Adams is a former pharmaceutical company executive and corporate whistleblower, whose case was a cause célèbre in the 1970s....

, Roche's World Product Manager in Basel, contacted the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...

 in 1973 with evidence that Roche had been breaking antitrust laws, engaging in price fixing
Price fixing
Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand...

 and market sharing for vitamins with its competitors. Roche was fined accordingly, but a bungle on the part of the EEC allowed the company to discover that it was Adams who had blown the whistle. He was arrested for unauthorised disclosure — an offence under Swiss law — and imprisoned. His wife, having learnt that he might face decades in jail, committed suicide. Adams was released soon after but arrested again more than once before eventually fleeing to Britain, where he wrote a book about the affair, Roche Versus Adams (London, 1984, ISBN 022402180X).

In 1999 Roche was the worldwide market leader in vitamins, with a market share of 40%. Between 1990 and 1999, the company continued to participate in an illegal price fixing cartel for vitamins, which also included BASF
BASF
BASF SE is the largest chemical company in the world and is headquartered in Germany. BASF originally stood for Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik . Today, the four letters are a registered trademark and the company is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Zurich Stock...

 and Rhone-Poulenc SA. In 1999, Roche pleaded guilty in the United States and paid a US$500 million fine, then the largest fine ever secured in the U.S. The European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

 fined Roche
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...

462 million for the same infraction in 2001, also a record fine at the time.

Roche sold its vitamin business in late 2002 to the Dutch group DSM
DSM (company)
DSM is a multinational life sciences and materials sciences-based company. DSM's global end markets include food and dietary supplements, personal care, feed, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, automotive, paints, electrical and electronics, life protection, alternative energy and bio-based materials...

.

Products

Drugs produced by Roche include Xenical, Valium, Dormicum
Midazolam
Midazolam is a short-acting drug in the benzodiazepine class developed by Hoffmann-La Roche in the 1970s. The drug is used for treatment of acute seizures, moderate to severe insomnia, and for inducing sedation and amnesia before medical procedures. It possesses profoundly potent anxiolytic,...

, Roaccutane, Avastin, MabThera, Herceptin, Valcyte, Bactrim, Tarceva, Invirase, Boniva
Ibandronic acid
Ibandronic acid or ibandronate sodium , marketed under the trade names Boniva, Bondronat and Bonviva, is a potent bisphosphonate drug used in the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis....

, Xeloda and Tamiflu.

Blood glucose monitoring products produced by Roche under the Accu-Chek brand include
Accu-Chek Mobile, Accu-Chek Aviva, Accu-Chek Compact Plus

Oseltamivir Controversy

Oseltamivir is considered to be the primary antiviral drug used to combat avian influenza, commonly known as the bird flu
H5N1
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as "bird flu", A or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species...

. Roche is the only drug company authorized to manufacture the drug, which was discovered by Gilead Sciences
Gilead Sciences
Gilead Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and commercializes therapeutics. For many years since the company was founded, the company concentrated primarily on antiviral drugs to treat patients infected with HIV, hepatitis B or influenza. In 2006, Gilead acquired two...

. Roche purchased the rights to the drug in 1996 and in 2005 settled a royalty dispute, agreeing to pay Gilead tiered royalties of 14-22% of annual net sales.
On 20 October 2005, Hoffmann–La Roche decided to license other companies to manufacture Oseltamivir.

Collaborative research

In addition to internal research and development activities F. Hoffmann–La Roche is also involved in publicly funded collaborative research projects, with other industrial and academic partners. One example in the area of non-clinical
Pre-clinical development
In drug development, pre-clinical development is a stage of research that begins before clinical trials can begin, and during which important feasibility, iterative testing and drug safety data is collected....

 safety assessment is the InnoMed PredTox. The company is expanding its activities in joint research projects within the framework of the Innovative Medicines Initiative
Innovative Medicines Initiative
The Innovative Medicines Initiative is a European initiative to improve the competitive situation of the European Union in the field of pharmaceutical research...

 of EFPIA and the European Commission
European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

.

Additional key persons

In addition to corporate executive committee members mentioned in the summary information box
  • Chief Financial Officer Dr Erich Hunziker (1953) (to be retired by end of March 2011, will be replaced by Alan Hippe from ThyssenKrupp
    ThyssenKrupp
    ThyssenKrupp AG is a German multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Duisburg Essen, Germany. The corporation consists of 670 companies worldwide. While ThyssenKrupp is one of the world's largest steel producers, the company also provides components and systems for the automotive...

  • General Counsel and Head of Corporate Services Dr Gottlieb Keller (1954)
  • Head CEO Office, Per-Olof Attinger (1960)


Enlarged Corporate Executive Committee
  • Head Global Pharma Development Jean Jacques Garaud
  • Head of Human Resources Silvia Ayyoubi (1953)
  • Head Pharma Partnering Dan Zabrowski
  • Head of Pharma Research Lee Babbiss
  • Head of Roche Diagnostics' business area Diabetes Care Burkhard G. Piper (1961)
  • Head of Commercial Operations Pharma Pascal Soriot (1959)
  • President and CEO, Chugai Osamu Nagayama (1947)
  • Secretary to the Corporate Executive Committee, Per-Olof Attinger (1960)
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