Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly delaying applications for health-insurance reimbursement for new medicines in Switzerland, raising concerns about patient access to innovative treatments.
A survey by Swiss pharmaceutical industry association Interpharma found that seven of 22 innovative medicines introduced between January 2025 and June 2026 were not submitted for inclusion on Switzerland’s mandatory health-insurance reimbursement list. Three additional medicines were not submitted for Swiss market approval at all.
The companies’ concerns are linked to U.S. drug-pricing policies that compare American medicine prices with those in other countries. Switzerland is among the countries whose prices could be used as a reference, creating a potential incentive for manufacturers to avoid establishing lower prices there.
Only 15 reimbursement applications were submitted during the 18-month period, compared with an average of 24 applications over comparable previous periods, according to Interpharma.
The issue illustrates a broader challenge facing pharmaceutical markets: drug pricing in one country can increasingly influence launch and reimbursement decisions in another.
For patients, delayed reimbursement applications can mean that newly developed medicines take longer to become broadly accessible through the national healthcare system.
