Roche news

On 1st December for the sixth consecutive year, Roche will be holding a sponsored worldwide walk to raise money to help orphans and children in need. With their participation, the Roche employees demonstrate their solidarity and ongoing commitment to help support children in Malawi and childrens’ organisations in their own countries. All funds raised by employees are matched by Roche.

Roche and Memory Pharmaceuticals today announced that the two companies have signed a definitive merger agreement for Roche to fully acquire Memory in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately USD 50 million.

Roche has decided for technical reasons not to continue with its office high-rise in the form originally planned. It became apparent during the project design phase that the building would not be capable of satisfying key functional requirements despite the high investment.

Third study confirming the benefit of Avastin in breast cancer shows that Avastin can be effectively combined with commonly used chemotherapies

Roche today announced that the European Committee on Human Medicinal Products (CHMP) has given a positive recommendation for RoActemra (tocilizumab, known as Actemra outside of the EU), in combination with methotrexate (MTX), for the treatment of adult patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have either responded inadequately to, or who were intolerant to, previous therapy w

Effective January 1, 2009, Per-Olof Attinger will be appointed Head of Corporate Communications and Member of the Enlarged Corporate Executive Committee, reporting to Severin Schwan, CEO of the Roche Group. He succeeds Rolf Schläpfer, who – as previously announced – has decided to leave Roche at the end of the year to pursue his career outside the company.

Roche today announced that the SATURN (SequentiAl Tarceva in UnResectable NSCLC) study met its primary endpoint of progression free survival.

The United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA) today approved a new test from Roche that uses nucleic acid technology (NAT) to screen blood supplies for the broadest range of HIV and hepatitis infections.

Roche announced today that the innovative new therapy ACTEMRA (tocilizumab) can significantly inhibit structural damage to joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) – this is a critical measure of effectiveness of an RA treatment. ACTEMRA was also found to improve the patients’ physical function after one year of therapy and to significantly increase the disease remission rate.

Sales by the Roche Group in the first nine months of 2008 increased by 6% in local currencies (-2% in Swiss francs; 13% in US dollars) to 33.3 billion Swiss francs. Excluding Tamiflu pandemic sales to governments and corporations, sales rose 10% (2% in Swiss francs; 17% in US dollars). The rise in the Swiss franc against most currencies, particularly against the US dollar, resulted in Swiss franc growth being eight percentage points lower than growth in local currencies.