Since 2017, the Federal Office annually reviews the prices of one third of the medicines reimbursed by health insurance companies. The criteria here are effectiveness, usability and cost-effectiveness.
For the entire three-year assessment period from 2020 to 2022, the agency expects savings of at least CHF 250 million.
During the period in question, the BAG checked the last third of the drugs on the list of specialties for the current year, as announced on Thursday. These were medicines in the fields of heart and circulation, infectious diseases and ophthalmology.
Even generic drugs should become cheaper
The FOPH ordered price cuts for more than half of the original controlled preparations. No price reduction was appropriate for the other products; these were still economical compared to the reference countries and to other medicines.
The agency has ordered the prices for generic drugs to fall for 57 percent of the preparations. The price reductions will take place on December 1. In the coming months, the FOPH will complete its investigation of the uncontrolled drugs.
With the results announced on Thursday, the second cycle of assessments has been completed. It resulted in a saving of at least CHF 250 million. In the first cycle from 2017 to 2019, the revision resulted in a saving of approximately CHF 470 million.
Cancer drugs are being reviewed
In 2023, the BAG will restart the three-year assessment cycle. As in 2017 and 2020, the prices of medicines from the fields of cancer medicine and gastroenterology will be the first to appear. In addition to the prices, the agency also checks whether a medicine can remain on the list of specialties.
For the assessment, the FOPH pools the drugs in equal units of 1000 drugs from different therapeutic areas. For reasons of equal treatment, it always checks all medicines of a therapeutic group together.
Drug prices are an important cost factor in compulsory health insurance. According to health insurer Santésuisse, they have increased by 4 to 7 percent in the past ten years. In 2020, health insurers spent CHF 7.6 billion on medicines, a new record. That is equivalent to CHF 882 per capita.
Medicines cost considerably more in Switzerland than in neighboring countries. Even generics are charged double the price. The strengthening of the Swiss franc also made medicines more expensive. The specialty list of medicines reimbursed by health insurers contains about 3,000 preparations. (SDA)