Roche pharmaceuticals: why large scale testing for coronavirus isn’t happening in the Netherlands

Roche is a market leader in the Netherlands, and has used this privilege to create what is called a vendor lock-in, according to research by Follow the Money. That means that laboratories which use Roche machinery to make medicines or do experiments also have to use Roche materials to do so. Because Roche is experiencing a shortage of the materials necessary for coronavirus tests, Dutch laboratories haven’t been able to allow for the widespread testing that was so effective in halting the spread of coronavirus in other countries like South Korea.

You might feel some form of sympathy for Roche if they were just underprepared for the scale of coronavirus: almost everyone was. But the problem is that there is a solution to this shortage, but Roche is refusing to take it presently because of its impact on their profits. Roche could share the prescription for one of the elements of the testing materials, called a lysis…