We examine the impact of major global companies in Switzerland and internationally, with a primary focus on key Swiss industries: pharma, healthcare, food, and agribusiness.
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How Switzerland became a longevity hot spot
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People have come to Switzerland for centuries in search of the fountain of youth. How did the country become a magnet for longevity seekers?
Trump presidency to test public trust in Big Pharma
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A second Trump presidency risks eroding public trust in the pharmaceutical industry if science, trade and public health are sidelined.
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Swiss pharma giant Roche is the latest company to refocus its R&D investment on diseases like obesity that weigh heavily on healthcare budgets.
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Sex and gender are rarely considered in drug development. There’s now a movement, including in Switzerland, to change this.
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Japan is increasingly being overlooked by international drugmakers when launching new medicine. Now, the government is fighting back.
Raw milk: regulatory loophole gives Swiss the freedom to skip pasteurisation
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The sale of raw milk is banned in some parts of the world but Switzerland counts on labelling and personal responsibility.
Cosmetic pesticides are making it to your apple. Is that a bad thing?
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Plant growth hormones are widely used in fruit cultivation to give consumers uniform, blemish-free products. But with little published research, the risks are as yet unknown.
Better latte than never: Swiss coffee industry joins forces to improve conditions of coffee growers
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A heterogenous alliance of Swiss traders, roasters, cafés, bureaucrats, academia and NGOs is trying to raise the sustainability bar across the entire industry.
Pesticide-free but not organic: Swiss offer alternative to wean agriculture off chemicals
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Getting farmers to switch to organic farming is hard. Could giving up pesticides while still being able to use synthetic fertilisers help them to make the transition?
Community corner: latest debates and surveys on Multinational Companies
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Debate
Hosted by:
Jessica Davis Plüss
Living longer: What do you think about the longevity trend?
The longevity market is booming thanks in part to advances in the science of ageing. What do you think of the idea of significantly extending human lifespan?
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What is a multinational and which criteria makes it Swiss? Why are there so many in Switzerland, what’s their economic impact on the job market? Here’s a short video to answer these questions.
From bean to bar: global perspectives on Swiss chocolate
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Africa wants more time and money to comply with EU deforestation regulation
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African cocoa- and coffee- producing countries are racing against the clock to avoid being excluded from the European market. A proposal to delay implementation would give them more time to prepare.
Why Swiss chocolate makers can’t win the battle against child labour
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Swiss chocolate makers have committed to ending child labour in their supply chains by 2025. They will not succeed on their own.
Five things Africa can do to make the most of its cocoa
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West Africa produces 75% of the world’s cocoa beans and yet one-fifth of cocoa farmers in the region don’t even earn a living wage.
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Growing and exporting cocoa beans may be big business but it’s low-margin and volatile. Moving up the value chain could be more profitable and stable.
Can a West African cocoa cartel rise from the ashes?
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Ghana and Ivory Coast tried to raise cocoa bean prices but were derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic. They’re now trying to claw back lost ground.
How the humble cocoa bean gets turned into chocolate and money
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The chocolate supply chain has many intermediaries from bean to bar. Those at the bottom get the least but it doesn’t have to be this way.
How gold mining in Ghana is threatening Swiss chocolate
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As the world’s second-largest cocoa producer loses swathes of farmland to illegal gold mining, chocolate makers are waking up to the threat.
West Africa braces for tough sustainable cocoa rules in Europe
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Stricter sustainability rules could exclude West African cocoa from European markets. A cocoa farmers’ database in Ghana could be a game changer.
Swiss pharma reckons with its past, present and future
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This is the story of how making drugs helped turn a small, mountainous country into an industry titan, and what the pandemic means for its future.
Longevity clinics: modern-day snake oil or the key to healthy ageing?
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Scientists have yet to find the elixir of life but this hasn’t stopped longevity clinics from selling treatments, pills and gadgets that claim to slow ageing.
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Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) achieved slightly higher sales at the start of the year. However, profits fell sharply, partly due to the late Easter.
Novartis raises forecast again after strong Q1 results
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Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has continued the strong pace of growth of recent quarters in the first three months of 2025.
Lufthansa set to abolish in-flight sales, SWISS to keep them
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Perfumes, cigarettes, sunglasses: The German airline Lufthansa will no longer sell these products on long-haul flights in future. Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss is sticking to in-flight sales for the time being.
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Looming US pharma tariffs could challenge the status quo in pharmaceutical hubs like Switzerland as investment shifts to the US.
