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Roche Holdings in the McSpotlight

| What's Wrong With Roche Holdings | Opposition & Campaigns | Company Profile |


According to the medical publication SCRIP, Roche is one of a number of companies being sued in the UK by patients claiming damages for injuries caused by benzodiazepine drugs, such as Roche's Valium. Lawyers claim that the companies failed to warn doctors of the risk of dependency. 3,000 claims had been made by 1991.

A survey of Swiss drug sales in the Third World in 1988/9, showed Roche as selling the most non-essential and inappropriate drugs of all the Swiss drugs companies. 85% of all drugs it sold in the Third World were found to be non-essential and 51% were inappropriate.

Roche Holdings AG is part of the pharmaceutical industry.

It is not only the specific practices of individual companies that cause problems. The attitudes created by the currrent system of exploitation gives power and profits to the few, at the expense of people, animals and the environment. It is important to expose the unethical practices of specific companies as their behaviour is often indicative of the entire system.


What's Wrong With ?
Irresponsible Marketing

Irresponsible marketing

Roche was listed by Multinational Monitor magazine as one of the ten worst companies of 1991 for its marketing of its Versed sedative.

According to internal company documents released in 1991, Roche ignored early warnings from its research division that its Versed sedative could cause deadly side effects if it was sold in a highly concentrated form. However, Versed was marketed in this form for two years and was linked to about 80 deaths and many more near fatalities. The company allegedly hoped that Versed would replace Valium when its patent expired, but Versed is 4-6 times as potent. Roche now sells Versed in a less concentrated form.


[The Ethical Consumer Guide to Everyday Shopping  published by the Ethical Consumer Research Association. ]

Credits and References: Most of the information in this section was taken from The Ethical Consumer Guide to Everyday Shopping  published by the Ethical Consumer Research Association. 


Opposition and Campaigns

Exploitation and profiteering do not need to exist. A better way of running our lives can be created based on the sharing of resources and on respect for each other and for nature. Increasingly people are questioning and challenging those with power and are seeking alternatives. Let's hope it's possible to make a difference.

Company Profile

Products and brandnames:


Postal address(es):
Roche Holdings AG
Grenzacherstr.
124, CH-4002 Basel,
Switzerland

Phone number(s):
+41 / 61 688 71 24
(Public relations no.)



Fax number(s):
+41 / 61 688 88 07
(Public relations no.)

 Online presence:

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