Prices of certain cheap medicine to rise sharply in Switzerland
The price of a box of 20 Ibuprofen 400mg tablets has doubled from CHF5.90 to CHF10.95.
Keystone / Christian Beutler
Consumers in Switzerland face higher prices for certain common medicine following a reform of the pricing system that came into force on July 1. Ibuprofen, for example, is doubling in price.
This content was published on
2 minutes
RTS
This increase is the result of a change in the way the price of medicine is calculated, which was agreed by the government last year. Under the new system, the manufacturing cost remains the same, but the distribution margin has increased significantly. Value Added Tax has also risen slightly.
“This new, relatively complicated system mainly affects low-cost medicines, whose prices are rising,” says Yannis Papadaniel, who heads the consumer federation for French-speaking Switzerland. For example, the price of a box of 20 400mg tablets Ibuprofen has doubled from CHF5.90 ($6.50) to CHF10.95.
And while prices for more expensive drugs are tending to fall, Papadaniel argues “this new pricing system is still rather problematic, since we are in a context of inflation”.
Patients will bear the brunt of this reform because “from the moment the medicine is prescribed, there is no way of avoiding the price increase,” he added.
Translated from French by DeepL/jdp
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
What factors should be taken into account when inheriting Swiss citizenship abroad?
Should there be a limit to the passing on of Swiss citizenship? Or is the current practice too strict and it should still be possible to register after the age of 25?
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
Trump tariffs: ‘I’m a bit perplexed’, says former US ambassador to Switzerland
This content was published on
The former US ambassador to Switzerland, Edward McMullen, says he is optimistic for the Alpine country with regard to the 31% tariff on imports imposed by US President Donald Trump.
Swiss Federal Court upholds Beny Steinmetz’s bribery conviction
This content was published on
Switzerland's highest court has upheld the conviction of French-Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz for bribery of foreign public officials.
This content was published on
The Trump administration has imposed a 31% tariff on imports from Switzerland. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter has warned against "giving in to alarmism" in an interview published on Saturday,
This content was published on
Scientists have shown that bonobos combine their calls into complex sound sequences that resemble combinations of human words.
This content was published on
US parliamentarians have threatened the UN Human Rights Council with sanctions similar to those against the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This content was published on
Thanks to abundant snowfall, lift operators benefited from increased visitor numbers, with the number of guests jumping by 12% year-on-year.
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.