HIV infected/affected children receive much-needed
support from Roche Palo Alto employees

Palo Alto, Calif., November 27, 2006 – On World AIDS day, December 1, more than 400 employees from Roche Palo Alto will participate in the fourth annual Global Roche Employee AIDS Walk. The AIDS Walk is a worldwide event to support children infected with and affected by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Each employee who participates collects donations. Roche matches those donations and the funds are used to improve and extend the lives of children living with HIV/AIDS.

As with previous Global Roche Employee AIDS Walks, a large portion of the funds collected, including those from Roche Palo Alto, will be donated to an organization that supports children in Malawi, Africa, who have lost one or both parents to AIDS. The funds support orphanages that provide children with food, clothing, basic healthcare and schooling. Malawi is classified by the United Nations (UN) as one of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) and has been hit hard by HIV/AIDS. More than half a million children in Malawi have lost one or both parents to the disease. As orphans, they are often excluded from education and vocational training because of their poverty.

In addition, some of those funds collected this year by Roche Palo Alto employees will be donated to Sunburst Projects to support Camp Sunburst, a week-long summer camp for HIV infected/affected youth and their families. The mission of Sunburst Projects is to keep families together by creating safe and supportive communities for children, youth and families living with HIV/AIDS.

The first Roche Employee AIDS Walk occurred in 2003 as a pilot program involving three Roche sites, including Roche Palo Alto. Immensely successful, it was extended to include all Roche sites. Since 2003, about 20,000 Roche employees have taken part in the annual walk, collecting approximately $2.2 million for children impacted by AIDS.

Roche policies in least developed countries
No patents for any of Roche medicines – across all disease areas – will be filed in the world’s Least Developed Countries, as defined by the UN. Roche will not file patents on new HIV/AIDS medicines in LDCs or sub-Saharan Africa. Roche will not take action in these countries against the sale or manufacture of generic versions of HIV medicines for which Roche still holds patents. Generic versions of such HIV medicines can therefore be produced in LDCs and sub-Saharan Africa without the need for a voluntary or compulsory licence.

Roche makes its HIV protease inhibitors – Invirase® (saquinavir) and Viracept® (nelfinavir) available at no profit prices for direct supplies from Roche Basel to LDCs and sub-Saharan Africa.

Roche no profit pricing and patent policies apply to the majority (69%) of all people living with HIV/AIDS. Roche has reduced pricing for these HIV protease inhibitors medicines available for 93% of all people living with HIV/AIDS in the world.

Through its AmpliCare program Roche has been supplying HIV viral load tests at the lowest possible price to sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa, and countries defined by the United Nation as ‘least developed’. AmpliCare focuses on the complete continuum of care – from testing to monitoring to education – and works to optimize efforts on a region-by-region basis. It includes flexible pricing and support of major government and private programs. Capping it off is an education program to ensure that local doctors and nurses are fully informed on the latest advances in HIV/AIDS care.

Sustainability and social responsibility – part of the Roche tradition
Sustainability expresses a principle that has long been part of Roche’s culture and activities; so has social responsibility. Roche is committed to a system of corporate governance that conforms to the latest standards and is continuously benchmarking its principles and achievements against the industry and best practice. For over a century, the company has been working to improve healthcare worldwide and supports humanitarian projects aimed primarily at helping people in the world's poorest countries.

Amongst others, Roche is involved in the Phelophepa train project: Phelophepa is the name of a mobile clinic on rails which has been bringing basic medical services to people in remote parts of South Africa since 1994. Roche has been supporting the train, which is operated by the state rail corporation, Transnet, for the last 10 years. Phelophepa spends 36 weeks a year travelling around areas with inadequate medical services. To date, the train has reached over one million people in remote parts of the country. This method of helping people to help themselves has brought about a significant and lasting improvement in the health of people living in the regions visited by the train. Phelophepa is thus contributing to sustainable development in rural South Africa.

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About Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world’s leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As a supplier of innovative products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people’s health and quality of life. Roche is a world leader in diagnostics, the leading supplier of medicines for cancer and transplantation and a market leader in virology. In 2005 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totalled 27.3 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 8.2 billion Swiss francs. Roche employs roughly 70,000 people in 150 countries and has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai. Additional information about the Roche Group is available on the Internet (www.roche.com).

About Roche Palo Alto
Roche employs approximately 1,000 people on its Palo Alto campus, which is located adjacent to Stanford University in California’s Silicon Valley. It is one of five global Roche research centers and is focused on the discovery of new medicines to treat neural, viral, inflammatory and immune disorders and to support organ transplantation. Medicines discovered on the Roche Palo Alto campus include CellCept® (mycophenolate mofetil) for the prevention of renal, cardiac and hepatic organ transplant rejection, Valcyte® (valganciclovir) for the treatment of cytomegalovirus (CMV) in patients with AIDS and prevention of CMV disease in kidney, heart and kidney-pancreas transplant in high risk patients and Naprosyn®, a naproxen-sodium based over-the-counter pain reliever. (http://paloalto.roche.com)

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