Swiss drugs market slows to ten-year low

Pharmaceutical sales grew more slowly last year in Switzerland Keystone

The Swiss medication market grew by just over four per cent last year, the lowest growth rate in a decade.

Experts blamed the result on low-cost generic drugs, plus the fact that people were generally buying fewer medicines.

Interpharma, the umbrella organisation that represents the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, said sales of medications in Switzerland totalled SFr4.05 billion ($3.46 billion) in 2004 – up 4.5 per cent on 2003.

This compares with a market increase of between 6.5 per cent and 9.7 per cent in the past few years.

The worldwide market for drugs grew on average seven per cent in 2004.

The organisation said that the use of generic drugs – copies of drugs no longer protected by patents that were reimbursed by health insurances – soared by 30 per cent.

“This evolution is not just linked to commercially-interesting patents running out; it also comes from the medical world’s use of prescriptions and the increasing use of substitutions by pharmacies,” said Interpharma in a statement on Thursday.

It added that the generics market has tripled since 2000 and was worth SFr184 million last year.

Non-generic

The non-generic medications market increased by eight per cent last year, which Interpharma put down to more expensive treatments for cancer, infections and transplants.

Experts said another trend was that people were tending not to self-medicate as much as they had in the past and were relying on prescriptions.

Responding to the question of whether medications cost too much in Switzerland, Interpharma said that a recent comparison with Germany had shown that price differences between the two countries were minimal.

It added that for drugs brought out in 2004, prices were even a bit higher in Germany.

swissinfo with agencies

Key facts

In 2004 the Swiss pharmaceutical market increased by 4.5 per cent to around SFr4 billion.
This was down from a rise of between 6.5 and 9.7 per cent over the past years.
The number of medications sold fell by 3.3 per cent in 2004.