Roche Expands Use of Novel HIV Test

Test with enhanced reliability for monitoring HIV patients now CE marked

PLEASANTON, California, May 19, 2011 - Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced today that it has received
CE mark for the expanded use of its novel HIV test(1). This allows the test
to be used in smaller laboratory settings. In the face of the rapidly growing
genetic diversity of HIV-1(2,3) and its implications for the efficacy of
antiretroviral therapy, Roche's new dual target approach ensures enhanced
reliability of test results and more confidence in assessing viral loads.
Since Roche introduced this innovative strategy in 2008, over 3.2 million
tests have been performed using the dual target approach for monitoring HIV
patients on antiretroviral therapy.

"This dual target approach improves the ability of physicians and
laboratories to obtain reliable information about HIV-infected patients,"
said Paul Brown, PhD, Head of Roche Molecular Systems. "Roche is committed to
developing and providing new diagnostic tools such as this dual target
approach that will better serve all laboratories performing viral load tests
for HIV patients, including laboratories performing clinical trial and
research-related studies that have specific needs."

The dual target strategy

The dual target strategy improves accuracy in quantifying HIV-1 subtypes
by avoiding the effects of rare mismatches in primer/probe binding sites of a
target region by simultaneously detecting and amplifying 2 separate regions
of the HIV-1 genome. The test utilizes the High Pure System Viral Nucleic
Acid Kit for manual specimen preparation and the COBAS TaqMan 48 Analyzer for
automated amplification and detection.

About HIV

Accordingly to UNAIDS, there were 33.3 million people living with HIV
around the world in 2009. In that same year, 2.6 million people became newly
infected with HIV - almost 20 percent fewer than in the late 1990s.(4) Highly
active antiretroviral treatment (HAART) and viral load tests, a test to
determine the amount of circulating HIV, have contributed to a steady
increase in life expectancy for HIV-infected people by 13 years.(5)

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in
research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and
diagnostics. Roche is the world's largest biotech company with truly
differentiated medicines in oncology, virology, inflammation, metabolism and
CNS. Roche is also the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics, tissue-based
cancer diagnostics and a pioneer in diabetes management. Roche's personalised
healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that
enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of
patients. In 2010, Roche had over 80'000 employees worldwide and invested
over 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 47.5 billion
Swiss francs. Genentech, United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche
Group. Roche has a majority stake in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more
information: www.roche.com.

All trademarks used or mentioned in this release are protected by law.

(1) COBAS(R) TaqMan(R) HIV-1 Test, v2.0 For Use With The High Pure System

(2) Clark SA, Calef C, Mellors JW. Mutations in retroviral genes
associated with drug resistance. HIV sequence database.
www.hiv.lanl.gov/content/sequence/HIV/REVIEWS/2006_7/RESISTANCE/Resist.html.
Accessed August 29, 2008.

(3) Chequer-Fernandez SL, Rodrigues CA, Campos-Melo DL, Pilotto JH,
Morgado MG. HIV-1 polymorphism: evaluation of its potential implication for
the response to antiretroviral therapy of HIV-1 infected patients with
prevalent subtypes in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil [abstract]. Presented at: 15th
International AIDS Conference; July 11-16, 2004; Bangkok, Thailand. Abstract
MoPeC3442. gateway.nlm.nih.gov/MeetingAbstracts/ma?f=102279743.html.
Accessed August 19, 2008.

(4) The UNAIDS Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic 2010.

(5) Lancet. Volume 372, Issue 9635, 26 July 2008-1 August 2008, Pages
293-299

    Contact:
    Roche Molecular Systems
    +1-888-545-2443

.