Switzerland Introduces Confidential Managed-Entry Agreements, Cost-Containment Measures

BERN, Switzerland – A new law from Switzerland’s Ministry of the Interior seeks to establish a legal basis for use of confidential market-access schemes to improve patient access to innovative medicines.

The law, “Modèles de Prix Pour Médicaments”, provides a confidentially clause for the price of medicines, which would no longer make public the refund for a drug, especially in instances where the discount is high.

Three types of managed entry agreements will be henceforth utilized in Switzerland: price refunds, sales volume limits, and pay-for-performance. Since last year, 20 such deals, which are confidential, have been negotiated in Switzerland.

In the past, Switzerland has published price discounts but is heading in a new direction following the rise in rebate negotiations (as mentioned, 20 alone in the last year) with pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland.

Switzerland’s new pricing models for drugs aim to guarantee “rapid and most advantageous access” to innovative and expensive medicines. The scope of these pricing models includes other measures such as differentiated examination of efficacy, adequacy, and economic analyses of drugs, and the introduction of fair benchmarks to ensure competition between hospitals.

In addition, Switzerland is introducing cost-containment measures for the compulsory health insurance scheme (AOS), dictating, for example, to what extent health costs may increase for inpatient hospital care, outpatient medical treatment, etc.

All in all, Switzerland intends to reap potential savings of nearly a billion francs, or 3% on the amount of premiums.

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