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Pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland

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Pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland

The pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland directly and indirectly employs about 135,000 people. It contributes to 5.7% of the gross domestic product of Switzerland and contributes to 30% of the country's exports.

Contents

Switzerland is home to many pharmaceutical companies, including very large groups, such as Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche. In 2013, 41 life science companies had their international headquarters (and 29 more their regional headquarters) in Switzerland.

History

  • 1896: foundation of Hoffmann-La Roche.
  • 1933: foundation of Interpharma.
  • 1950s: Cilag merged with Janssen Pharmaceutica, into Janssen-Cilag.
  • 1996: Ciba-Geigy merged with Sandoz, with the pharmaceutical and agrochemical divisions of both staying together to form Novartis. Other Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz businesses were sold off, or, like Ciba Specialty Chemicals, were spun off as independent companies. The Sandoz brand disappeared for three years, but was revived in 2003 when Novartis consolidated its generic drugs businesses into a single subsidiary and named it Sandoz.
  • 1990: Hoffmann-La Roche owned a majority of Genentech. It was to be completely integrated in 2009.
  • 2000: Novartis divested its agrochemical and genetically modified crops business with the spinout of Syngenta, in partnership with AstraZeneca, which also divested its agrochemical business.

    • Companies

    Basel is home to Novartis (Sandoz), Hoffmann-La Roche, Basilea Pharmaceutica, Actelion and Straumann. In 2013, Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche were respectively the second and third world biggest pharmaceutical companies (preceded by Pfizer and followed by Merck & Co. and Sanofi).

    Switzerland is also home to Merck Serono (Serono), Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Debiopharm, Nycomed, Janssen-Cilag, Galderma, Naari, Weleda, Octapharma and Frewitt.

    What is more, many non-domestic companies have their regional headquarters in Switzerland, for instance: Biogen Idec, Amgen, Celgene, Medtronic and Onyx Pharmaceuticals.

    See also: Alliance Boots, Fenjal.

    Life sciences

    70% of the investments in life sciences in Europe are made in the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland.

    In addition to pharmaceutical companies (65 companies), Switzerland is home to many companies in the fields of biotechnology (338 companies) or medical devices and technology (341 companies). According to KPMG, there are 120 life science companies in Basel, 132 in Zürich and 92 in the Lemanic region.

    In 2013, 41 life science companies had their international headquarters (and 29 more their regional headquarters) in Switzerland.

    In Switzerland, there are about 51,000 workers in the field of medical technologies (1,600 companies) and 13,700 on the field of biotechnologies.

    Basel region

    According to Le Temps, there are about 900 pharmaceutical and medtech companies (50,000 workers) in the region of Basel. The region of Zurich, mainly active in medical technologies employs 21,000 workers.

    Lemanic region

    According to L'Hebdo, there are 750 biotech and medtech companies (20,000 employees) in the Lemanic region. Among them, 450 companies develop and/or produce drugs. In addition to that, there are 500 laboratories from universities and university hospitals (in the Lemanic region).

    Internships

  • Novartis: International BioCamp
  • Merck Serono: Innovation Cup

    • Conferences

  • Debiopharm: Debiopharm Academy

    • References

    Pharmaceutical industry in Switzerland Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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