Why the world's pharma hub is running out of pharmaceuticals
Switzerland is an undisputed pharmaceutical powerhouse with two of the biggest drugmakers in the world – Roche and Novartis – and hundreds of smaller biotech firms. How can a country that supplies the world with so much medicine face shortages at home? For the past three months, Swiss media has been flooded with reports of drug shortages of everything from the antibiotic amoxicillin and common painkillers like ibuprofen to treatments for chronic diseases like Parkinson’s, heart disease and epilepsy. According to the website drugshortage.ch, created by Swiss pharmacist Eneo Martinelli, at least 1,000 prescription drug preparations were “unavailable” in early March compared to around 450 in May 2021. The Federal Office for National Economic Supply (FONES) reported in early March that around 140 essential medicines faced delivery delays, were out of stock indefinitely or completely pulled from the market in early March, compared to 48 in 2017. “It’s a sad record that we’ve...