LAUSANNE – The survey conducted by the comparison site bonus.ch reveals that the Swiss pay more than a billion francs too much for medicines.
Drug distribution margins, i.e. the amounts invoiced by pharmacies and doctors, are CHF 410 million higher than the international average, as santésuisse, the association of health insurers recently indicated. But the excess sums that consumers in Switzerland pay for medicines actually go far beyond this figure.
The bonus.ch survey of various pharmacies reveals large price differences – up to 33% – for non-prescription medicines. Prices for this category of medicines have risen much higher than the general inflation rate in Switzerland.
The investigation also includes a series of medicines used in case of chronic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, gastric ulcers or migraines. While generic drugs cost up to 59% less than the corresponding original preparations, their prices are still very high compared to those in neighboring countries. The drugs considered cost in fact from 25% to 67% less in Germany and from 18% to 70% less in Italy. In some of these cases, they are absolutely identical drugs, from the same manufacturer, distributed under the same trade name.
It is therefore legitimate to ask what justifies such a difference in the price of generic medicines. It cannot be scientific research that raises costs, given that these are medicines produced on the basis of known standards that have been controlled for years now. And even the higher Swiss distribution margins cannot explain everything. A 25% price reduction for medicines would lead to a reduction in costs of 1.2 billion Swiss francs: a figure which corresponds to the 5.3% of health insurance premiums.
Ats
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