Annual Report 2025

Its economic importance is impressive: every Swiss franc of revenue generated by the pharmaceutical industry creates around CHF 3.20 in added value for Switzerland – through taxes and investment. In total, the sector contributes up to CHF 10 billion to public revenues every year and secures around 50,000 jobs directly and around 250,000 indirectly. At the same time, the medical benefits are clear: since 1990, innovative medicines have reduced mortality by almost a third, saved around two million days in hospital each year, and thus also helped to curb healthcare expenditure.

But this success story is not a given. The international environment is changing rapidly. Geopolitical tensions and new regulatory requirements are intensifying global competition between locations. In major markets such as the United States and China, large-scale investment in research, development and production within those countries is now a prerequisite for market access. For small, open economies such as Switzerland, this increases the competitive pressure noticeably. In addition, health policy developments are exacerbating the situation. In particular, the “most-favoured-nation” regime in the US is having far-reaching consequences: if US prices are increasingly linked to those in Switzerland and other European countries, low Swiss prices, which are adjusted for purchasing power, will have a direct impact on the world’s most important pharma-ceutical market. The consequences are foreseeable – and problematic: new medicines could be introduced in Switzerland with a delay, or only at significantly higher prices or, in the worst case, not at all. Research, clinical trials and skilled jobs are at risk of relocating abroad.