Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

directly and indirectly employs about 135,000 people.Stephan Vaterlaus, Stephan Suter and Barbara Fischer
"The Importance of the Pharmaceutical Industry for Switzerland"
A study undertaken on behalf of Interpharma, September 2011. It contributes 5.7% of the

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performanc ...

of Switzerland and 30% of the country's exports. In 2017 about 30% of Swiss exports (worth $84.8 billion) were chemical products. In the same year Switzerland was the second largest exporter of packaged medicine in the world, with about 11% of the global total, worth $36.5 billion. Switzerland is home to many pharmaceutical companies, including very large groups, such as

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by re ...

and

Hoffmann-La Roche F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche (), is a Swiss multinational holding healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on ...

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

History

* 1896: foundation of

. Willy Boder, "Le grand chambardement de la pharma", ''

Le Temps ' (, ) is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper published in Berliner format in Geneva by Le Temps SA. The paper was launched in 1998, formed out of the merger of two other newspapers, and (the former being a merger of two other papers), ...

'', Monday 7 July 2014, page 17. * 1933: foundation of Interpharma. * 1950s:

Cilag Cilag AG is a Swiss pharmaceutical company. Cilag is a subsidiary of American pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson. The company is part of Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine business segment. Company history In 1933, Swiss chemist Bernhar ...

merged with

Janssen Pharmaceutica Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine (formerly Janssen Pharmaceuticals) is a Belgian pharmaceutical company headquartered in Beerse, Belgium, and wholly owned by Johnson & Johnson. It was founded in 1953 by Paul Janssen. In 1961, Janssen Ph ...

, into Janssen-Cilag. * 1996:

Ciba-Geigy Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by revenue in 2024. Novartis manufactures the drugs ...

merged with Sandoz, with the pharmaceutical and

agrochemical An agrochemical or agrichemical, a contraction of ''agricultural chemical'', is a chemical product used in industrial agriculture. Agrichemical typically refers to biocides (pesticides including insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and nematicide ...

divisions of both staying together to form

. Other Ciba-Geigy and Sandoz businesses were sold off, or, like

Ciba Specialty Chemicals Ciba was a chemical company based in and near Basel, Switzerland. "Ciba" stood for "Chemische Industrie Basel" (Chemical Industries Basel) and was formed when the non-pharmaceuticals elements of Novartis were spun out in 1997, following the merg ...

, were spun off as independent companies. The Sandoz brand disappeared for three years, but was revived in 2003 when Novartis consolidated its

generic drug A generic drug is a pharmaceutical drug that contains the same chemical substance as a drug that was originally protected by chemical patents. Generic drugs are allowed for sale after the patents on the original drugs expire. Because the active ch ...

s businesses into a single subsidiary and named it

Sandoz Sandoz Group AG is a Swiss company that focuses on generic pharmaceuticals and biosimilars. Prior to October 2023, it was part of a division of Novartis that was established in 2003, when Novartis united all of its generics businesses under the ...

. * 1990:

owned a majority of

Genentech Genentech, Inc. is an American biotechnology corporation headquartered in South San Francisco, California. It operates as an independent subsidiary of holding company Roche. Genentech Research and Early Development operates as an independent cent ...

. It was to be completely integrated in 2009. * 2000:

divested its agrochemical and

genetically modified crops Genetically modified crops (GM crops) are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of '' Agrobacterium'' for the delivery of ...

business with the spinout of

Syngenta Syngenta Global AG is a global agricultural technology company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. It primarily covers crop protection and seeds for farmers. Syngenta is part of the Syngenta Group, entirely owned by Sinochem, a Chinese state ...

, in partnership with

AstraZeneca AstraZeneca plc () (AZ) is a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with its headquarters at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus in Cambridge, UK. It has a portfolio of products for major diseases in areas includi ...

, which also divested its agrochemical business.

Companies

A number of life sciences companies are either headquartered in

or maintain regional headquarters in Switzerland:

Life sciences

70% of the investments in life sciences in Europe are made in the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland.Site Selection for Life Sciences Companies
European Life Sciences Cluster 2013 Report,

KPMG KPMG is a multinational professional services network, based in London, United Kingdom. As one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte, and PwC. KPMG is a network of firms in 145 countries with 275,288 emplo ...

(page visited on 4 November 2013). Willy Boder, "La Suisse compétitive dans les sciences de la vie", ''

'', Tuesday 5 November 2013, p. 15. 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

, there are 120 life science companies in

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, 132 in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

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.

Hubs

Basel region

According to ''

'', there are about 900 pharmaceutical and medtech companies (50,000 workers) in the region of

. Dejan Nikolic, "Les sciences de la vie recrutent à Genève grâce à des ex-employés de Merck Serono", ''

'', Tuesday 21 April 2015, page 13. The region of

Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, mainly active in medical technologies employs 21,000 workers.

Lemanic region

According to ''

L'Hebdo ''L'Hebdo'' (, ) was a weekly French language news magazine published in Lausanne, Switzerland. Founded in 1981, it focused on social, economic and cultural issues. It was published by Ringier. Following its unprofitability, it ceased publicati ...

'', there are 750 biotech and medtech companies (20,000 employees) in the Lemanic region.Health Valley
, ''

'', 2010. 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).

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Karl Lüönd, ''Principe actif: la connaissance. Passé et présent de l'industrie pharmaceutique suisse'', Interpharma and éditions

Neue Zürcher Zeitung The (''NZZ''; "New Newspaper of Zurich") is German language daily newspaper, published by NZZ Mediengruppe in Zurich. The paper was founded in 1780. It has a reputation as a high-quality newspaper, as the German Swiss newspaper of record ...

, 2008.

External links

Interpharma
{{Portal bar, Biology, Medicine, Companies, Switzerland Pharmaceutical companies of Switzerland Industry in Switzerland