Roche joins forces with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to strengthen laboratory systems in the fight against the HIV and tuberculosis epidemics

• It is critical to strengthen laboratories to enable more people to access quality testing and build stronger, resilient healthcare systems.

• Public-private partnerships contribute to strengthening laboratory systems by leveraging the respective strengths, experience and resources of the partners.

• About 2 billion people worldwide are estimated to be infected with tuberculosis and more than 38 million people globally are living with HIV, including over 6 million undiagnosed.

BASEL, February 28, 2023 - Roche‌ ‌(SIX:‌ ‌RO,‌ ‌ROG;‌ ‌OTCQX:‌ ‌RHHBY)‌ announced today the expansion of its collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to strengthen laboratory capabilities in countries greatly affected by the HIV and tuberculosis (TB) epidemics. Through the implementation of a public-private partnership (PPP), named “Lab Networks for Health,” Roche and the CDC will seek to improve HIV and tuberculosis prevention, detection and treatment outcomes in select countries of Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Western Hemisphere (e.g., Latin America, Central America and Caribbean regions).

Specifically, Roche and the CDC intend to increase laboratory human-resource capacity building through expanded training interventions and to support laboratory quality management systems and improvement programs. The partners will also seek to optimize laboratory workflows and integrated diagnostics networks to increase access to multi-pathogen testing capabilities to enhance pandemic preparedness. In addition, they will work to improve local and regional capacity for effective laboratory waste management and related biosafety approaches.

All activities under the PPP will be developed in a manufacturer-agnostic and collaborative manner among representatives from the CDC, including country offices, Roche global and regional offices, and host countries’ Ministries of Health, with the goal of creating and improving local and regional institutional capacity to strengthen laboratory systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted progress toward reaching the World Health Organization (WHO) HIV and tuberculosis elimination goals and brought challenges to healthcare systems across countries and communities, putting lives at risk. A recent UNAIDS report highlighted the faltering progress for HIV programs, with approximately 1.5 million new infections occurring in 2021 – more than 1 million over the global target.¹ Reversing years of declines, about 10.6 million people worldwide became ill with tuberculosis in 2021, and only 6.4 million of them were diagnosed, according to global reporting.²

About the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

CDC Division of Global HIV and TB (DGHT)

The CDC is a global leader in strengthening public health laboratory systems and networks. Through the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), in 2022, the CDC supported more than 13,000 laboratories or testing sites in approximately 30 countries, enabling them to identify and prevent the spread of HIV, tuberculosis and other emerging disease threats.

Providing support and serving as a model for global public health laboratory practice, DGHT’s laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, continuously improve their internal processes and quality management systems and are accredited by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA) to ISO17025 and ISO17043 standards and by the College of American Pathologists (CAP). In addition, the CDC’s Viral Load and Early Infant Diagnosis laboratory is a designated WHO Pre-Qualification Evaluation Laboratory to evaluate the performance and operational characteristics of manufacturers’ assays and products according to standard evaluation protocols. The TB laboratory also serves as a WHO-designated Supranational TB Reference Laboratory, providing quality assurance support and technical assistance to national reference laboratories in the Caribbean region and Haiti.

In line with PEPFAR and CDC Global TB-supported priorities, CDC laboratories provide an invaluable service to public health laboratories to support prevention, detection and response efforts for HIV and TB programs globally. Laboratory scientists and other professionals within DGHT’s International Laboratory Branch advance policy and strategy development, implementation, evaluation and improvement across the entire value chain, including surveillance and assessment of the current state of the epidemic(s); new diagnostic test development; analytic and clinical evaluation of diagnostics; programmatic introduction and scale-up; continuous quality improvement; and laboratory and network optimization for increased efficiency.

About Roche

Founded in 1896 in Basel, Switzerland, as one of the first industrial manufacturers of branded medicines, Roche has grown into the world’s largest biotechnology company and the global leader in in-vitro diagnostics. The company pursues scientific excellence to discover and develop medicines and diagnostics for improving and saving the lives of people around the world. We are a pioneer in personalized healthcare and want to further transform how healthcare is delivered to have an even greater impact. To provide the best care for each person we partner with many stakeholders and combine our strengths in Diagnostics and Pharma with data insights from the clinical practice.

In recognizing our endeavor to pursue a long-term perspective in all we do, Roche has been named one of the most sustainable companies in the pharmaceuticals industry by the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for the thirteenth consecutive year. This distinction also reflects our efforts to improve access to healthcare together with local partners in every country we work.

Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan.

For more information, please visit www.roche.com.