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Roche (RHHBY.US) CEO: Europe has more monkeypox cases than reported, can quickly provide large number of test kits

Market IntelWednesday, Oct 23, 2024 4:30 am ET

1min read

Thomas Schinecker, CEO of Roche (RHHBY.US) said he was told Europe had more cases of monkeypox than previously reported, and the group could supply up to ten times the number of test kits currently needed. "Europe seems to have had more cases of monkeypox, maybe the media didn't report all of them," Thomas Schinecker said at a call after Roche's earnings on Wednesday.

Germany's Robert Koch Institute, the country's disease control agency, said on October 22 that a new variant of the monkeypox virus, Kladelb, had been detected in the country. The patient was infected abroad and was detected in Cologne on Friday, the institute said. However, the Robert Koch Institute said the risk to the wider population was low.

Thomas Schinecker said demand for Roche's monkeypox test kits was "not very high, but we can handle ten times the demand." He added that if a pandemic with much faster transmission were to occur, it would take the company six to nine months to further ramp up production of diagnostic products.

Notably, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced on August 14 that the monkeypox outbreak constituted a "public health emergency of international concern." This is the second time the WHO has issued its highest level of alert for the monkeypox outbreak since July 2022, drawing international attention.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said previously that the current monkeypox outbreak has the potential to spread further in Africa and to other continents, which is very worrying. WHO data showed that more than 15,600 cases of monkeypox had been reported since the beginning of the year, surpassing the total number of cases reported in 2022, with 537 deaths. The outbreak has spread to Europe and Asia, with new cases reported in Sweden, Pakistan and the Philippines, among others.

Moreover, according to the earnings released by Roche on Wednesday, the Group's sales in the first few months of 2024 grew 6% at constant exchange rates to CHF44.984 billion, mainly driven by strong demand for its medicines and diagnostic products.

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