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Johannesburg - SA's listed pharmaceutical companies stand most to gain should it become necessary to increase the country's preparedness to deal with swine flu.
There are two active ingredients available to treat swine flu, oseltamivir (available as Cipla's Oseltamivir and Roche's Tamiflu) and zanamivir (GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza).
The latter may boost Aspen Pharmacare's sales, said Frost & Sullivan's Peter Breitenbach, after the group clinched a R3.5bn deal with GSK in May. This entitles it to sell, market and distribute GSK products in SA for at least 20 years.
Cipla Medpro's version of Tamiflu may also be in high demand because of generic medicines' competitive prices.
"Adcock Ingram would benefit via its range of over-the-counter remedies more than other pharmaceutical companies," assuming the non-lethal version of the virus remains the norm, said Imara SP Reid's Warwick Lucas.
"The main beneficiaries at the moment are companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Roche," said another analyst.
"Their share price has reacted positively to the news of this outbreak and the increased number of vaccines these companies will be supplying globally," he said. "If we start buying those vaccines in SA it will be good news for those companies' share prices," he said.
- Fin24.com