Roche South Africa is three businesses behind one switchboard, and they are contacted separately. Work out which one you need before you dial, because Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics do not share a queue.
Roche South Africa contact details
- Switchboard, and the Pharmaceutical Division: 011 504 4746
- Diagnostics and Diabetes Care Division: 011 504 4600
- REAL, the Roche Ethical Assistance Line, for patient or product queries: 0800 21 21 25 toll free
- Address: Building E, Hertford Office Park, 90 Bekker Road, Midrand, 1686
- Postal: PO Box 1469, Halfway House, 1685
The mailboxes, by division
- Adverse events and safety queries, to Drug Safety: [email protected]
- Roche Diagnostics queries: [email protected]
- Roche Diabetes Care queries: [email protected]
Note the third one. Diabetes Care answers on an accu-chek.co.za address rather than a roche.com one, because Accu-Chek is the product brand. It is the right address even though the domain looks unrelated.
Reporting a side effect
This is the contact that matters most and the one people do not make. A suspected adverse reaction to any medicine should be reported, whether or not you are certain the medicine caused it, and Roche publishes a dedicated Drug Safety intake mailbox for exactly that. Include the product, the batch number from the pack, the dates, what happened and the patient’s age. In South Africa the same event is also reportable to SAHPRA, the medicines regulator, independently of the manufacturer — do both.
Roche will not answer a medical question
The company states plainly on its own contact page that it cannot respond to general medical information questions or to questions about your personal medical condition, and that it will not give out the names or functions of employees. So a question about whether a treatment is right for you goes to your doctor or pharmacist, not to Roche. Asking Roche will simply route the enquiry to a department and return the same answer.
Which division is which
- Pharmaceuticals — prescription medicines. A supply problem, a patient access programme or a safety report starts here.
- Diagnostics — cobas analysers, haematology, urinalysis, molecular diagnostics, tissue diagnostics, point of care testing, blood safety and reagents. This is a laboratory and hospital business, not a consumer one.
- Diabetes Care — Accu-Chek meters and strips. This is the consumer-facing one, and the accu-chek.co.za address is the right route for a meter fault or a strip query.
If you are not in South Africa
The South African contact form is for South African enquiries and the site directs non-residents elsewhere. A medicine approved here may not be approved in another country, and the local office cannot answer for another market.
Escalation
- A dispute about a medicine’s quality, labelling or availability goes to SAHPRA.
- A complaint about how a medicine was promoted can go to the Marketing Code Authority, the pharmaceutical industry’s self-regulatory body.
- A medical scheme refusing to fund a Roche product is a matter for the scheme and then the Council for Medical Schemes, not for the manufacturer.