Sandoz CEO: Switzerland could save millions on medicines
Richard Saynor is Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Sandoz, a global leader in generic and biosimilar medicines.
Bloomberg Finance Lp
Sandoz chief executive Richard Saynor says Switzerland could save millions on medicine if it made greater use of generic medicine.
This content was published on
4 minutes
www.swissinfo.ch/ds
But the Alpine nation rarely prescribes generic drugs, the term used for medicine that contains the same chemical substance as a brand-name medicine protected by patents.
“Switzerland could save hundreds of millions of francs every year on medicines if it switched more,” Saynor told the Tages-AnzeigerExternal link newspaper published on Wednesday.
The generic drug industry, he noted, produces 80% of all drugs worldwide, at 25% of the cost of the original manufacturer. “In Switzerland, generics and biosimilars only have a market share of around 25%,” he added. “In Europe it is around 70% and in the US 90%. With today’s margin system, medical practices and pharmacies in Switzerland earn more the more expensive the medication is. This disincentive drives up costs.”
Sandoz, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of generic medicines and a biosimilars drug maker, is a spin-off of Swiss pharma giant Novartis. It went public on Wednesday with shares opening at CHF24 ($26.05), valuing the company at CHF10.3 billion on its first day of trading, according to Reuters. Sandoz, however, is not listed in the Swiss leading index SMI for the time being.
Affordable drugs
The problem of affordable access to drugs has come into sharp focus in Switzerland, where health insurance premiums are already high and set to rise in 2024 by an average of 8.7%.
“Generics provide massive cost relief for healthcare systems, which in turn creates more space to finance innovative new active ingredients in the pharmaceutical industry,” said the CEO.
Generic drugs can hit the market only after the patents on the original drugs expire. In Switzerland, like the US, patents last two decades.
Biosimilars are copies of biological drugs and tend to be more expensive than generics in part because they require more rigorous safety and effectiveness studies to launch on the market. They are a clear strategic focus for Sandoz, according to the CEO. “We now have 25 biosimilars in the pipeline, and in the next eighteen months we plan to launch 5 biosimilars for blockbuster drugs in the US and Europe,” he told the newspaper.
More
More
Swiss government to save CHF250 million with generic drug promotion
This content was published on
Generic drugs will become cheaper than original drugs and patients’ co-payment will increase if they choose the more expensive product.
Sandoz is investing 250 million euros to expand its antibiotics capacities in Europe, where a sudden uptick in demand has caught many off-guard. “During the pandemic, the need for antibiotics more than halved,” he said. “Now it has more than doubled. No supply chain could have managed this in the short term… At Sandoz, we predicted a recovery in demand and decided to invest heavily in new facilities.”
Sandoz, the CEO noted, is one of few in the Western world still producing antibiotics on a global scale. “Antibiotics today come primarily from China and India, which can produce much more cheaply with different environmental standards and lower labor and energy costs,” he noted.
The company already has research and production sites in Germany, Austria and Slovenia. Slovenia, he noted is significantly cheaper than Switzerland, and Sandoz has become one of the largest employers to the Central European country. “Working with the government there is very easy,” he said. “In Austria, the government supported us with 50 million euros to expand our antibiotic production.”
In Switzerland, the company plans to move its offices off the Novartis campus to the Basel train station. Some Novartis employees have also moved to Sandoz.
Popular Stories
More
Swiss Abroad
How centuries of Swiss emigrants left their mark on the US
Bodycams: essential for good law enforcement, or a privacy risk?
Did you ever come across bodycams in your place of residence and if so, how do you think the use of bodycams alter the relationship between the public and (transport) police?
This content was published on
Swiss wheelchair racer Catherine Debrunner won the 5,000 metres to bring home Switzerland’s first gold medal at the Paralympics in Paris.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Swiss drug market grows amid high price concerns
This content was published on
The actual volume of drugs sold went down, but total income grew by 6.6 per cent. The rate of growth was less than that of the previous year, which was 9.6 per cent. Industry associations blamed falling drug prices and the rising popularity of generics in the Swiss market. Presenting the results on Friday were…
This content was published on
Africa is a burgeoning market for cancer drugs. But as pharmaceutical companies like Roche are learning in Kenya, the challenges are immense.
Too few pharma companies prioritise access to medicines
This content was published on
Novartis and Roche both get a boost in the 2018 ranking of progress in expanding access to medicines by the biggest pharmaceutical companies.
Novartis’s big bet on sickle cell disease struggles to reach Kenya
This content was published on
Pharma giants are pouring money into new therapies for sickle cell disease but in Kenya, patients struggle to access a decades-old drug.
Swiss drug prices still soar above European levels
This content was published on
Compared with nine other European countries, Switzerland remains a high-price island for medicine, according to an annual survey.
This content was published on
Prices for medical drugs in Switzerland remain significantly higher than in other European countries, even if they have come down slightly.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.