Chugai Pharmaceutical planning to triple its production of Tamiflu for Japan

Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. plans to triple the amount of antiviral drug Tamiflu it supplies in Japan amid the global swine flu pandemic.

Chugai, the Japanese unit of Roche Holding AG, is preparing to provide Tamiflu for 12 million people, or 10 percent of Japan's population, by March, three times the amount it supplied a year earlier, the company said on its Web site.

"This Tamiflu will be supplied to clinics and hospitals," said Seiji Shimada, a Chugai Pharma spokesman, adding the company isn't planning to revise its earnings forecast.

The H1N1 swine flu emerged last April in North America and has spread as far as New Zealand, Norway and Japan. It had killed at least 2,837 people worldwide as of Aug. 30, according to the World Health Organization.

Chugai Pharma said it will consider further boosting production depending on the epidemic's situation in the coming flu season in Japan.

Tamiflu and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza are being stored by Geneva-based WHO and governments around the world. Glaxo is tripling its capacity to make Relenza by the end of the year, the company said in July.