Pandemic Tested Limits of Regulators, Roche’s Anderson Says

(Bloomberg) -- The pace of approvals for Covid-19 diagnostic tests has been limited by the scale of the applicants compared to a limited number of staff qualified to review them, according to Roche Pharmaceuticals Chief Executive Officer Bill Anderson.

“I think the pandemic has tested the limits of the regulatory bodies who approve things because of just the number of things that have been coming at them,” Anderson said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore when asked why it was so difficult to get rapid Covid-19 diagnostic tests in the U.S. as compared to Europe.

“There have been literally hundreds and hundreds of companies - some of whom didn’t even exist two years ago - making tests. And the regulators, you know, they only have so many people who are qualified to judge these things.”

“I think that they’ve done an amazing job of doing it, and doing it well,” he added. “But it’s not perfect.”

Anderson said that when a regulator signs off on something it’s expected to be first rate. He disagreed with the suggestion that EU regulators had performed better than their U.S. peers in overseeing the rapid development of tests.

“There were unrealistic expectations. Let’s say the average person was getting one virology test a decade. And then there was this expectation there was going to be enough for every person to get one test a week. You do the math on that.”

“This is hardware, it’s not software, right?” he added. “You can’t go from one to 500 in two months’ time.”

The New Economy Forum is being organized by Bloomberg Media Group, a division of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

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