A few weeks ago I was traveling in Brazil with my wife. We went to a drugstore coz I needed an anti inflammatory cream.

I look around for it and find one that is the same as Voltaren Dolo that we find here. Same brand GSK ( now Haleon) that has a fabric in Nyon, not too far from where I live. While I take one of them I tell my wife as a joke that maybe it comes from that fabric. I was sure it wasn’t as the price (like all medications) was much cheaper than in Switzerland.

I look at the box and ….. WTF it comes from that Swiss fabric and it cost about 12 chf while if I buy it at home I pay 39chf for it.

Something is really fu**ed up with our health system in Switzerland. The same medication from the same Swiss fabric is around 3 times cheaper on the other side of the world.

To be clear I m really happy that Brazilians pay much less for it as they also have less buying power. It is just insane that a good that traveled half the world is sold cheaper that if you buy it a few kilometers from where it has been made.

Big pharma companies are just playing with us and then every year we hear “the health costs are too high, we need to raise your health insurance” … Big pharma, Health insurance and part of the politicians (that have their responsibility in the pricing of medicine in Switzerland) are working hand to make crazy profits over our health …

I wonder how long we will accept this …

by Karsa_1312

22 comments

  1. What would be a fair price then?who decides on a fair price? Should the government intervene in a privat owned company is it that whar you are saying? What would the shareholder think? Happy to listen to your arguments…

  3. If there is no “subvention” coming from the state in brasil I don’t see other explanations. If we ignore the cost of shipping, i don’t thinck that the distribution cost 3 times more in Switzerland that in brasil.

  5. On photo from Brazil, it is 50g, on your screenshot it is 180g and different type (Pro XT vs Forte) — the latter one not sure what’s the difference.

    (Obviously, charging Swiss clientele with higher wages, but make your comparison correct)

  6. and the people working in the pharmacy make how much in Brazil compared to Switzerland? every single globally sold product is adjusted in price to every country. while some of it is purely to pump margin, economics aren‘t always that simple. Medicine tends to be unreasonably more expensive here, but the act of selling something is already worlds more expensive here than it is in Brazil or basically anywhere in the world. at the end of the day, 39.- is much less for the average Swiss than 12.- is for the average Brazilian.

  7. Totally agree. It makes sense that some things are more expensive because of import fees, transportation, etc. But for stuff like this, no excuse.

    (Just FYI, “fabric” in English means cloth. The word for where things are manufactured is “factory”.)

  8. Because shipping costs close to nothing but a pharmacy’s rent and the salaries for employees are one order of magnitude higher than in Brazil

  9. Better example: Germany: Ibuprofen 400 mg (noname) (50 pieces) =3.49€ – Sun Apotheke (noname) 10 pieces =9.59 CHF (10.35€) – That is almost 15 times the price!!!

  10. I live in Nyon, there’s nothing that bothers me more than seeing a product made in the factory from Nyon being sold cheaper in neighboring France whilst I pay double in the town it’s manufactured in..

  11. So you think that renting a drugstore in Switzerland and paying the employees a good salary is as cheap as doing the same thing in Brazil + shipping costs?

  12. “Ohh, but the salaries in Switzerland are higher…”

    Waiting for this bullcrap excuse

  13. OP is comparing 100g with 180g in Switzerland.
    12.09chf 100g =>180g = 22chf.
    Then knowing a person in the Swiss pharmacy makes >4k/mo while the Brazilian makes 200chf/mo.
    Seems that the Swiss product is much more affordable in Switzerland than in Brazil.

    Imagine spending 10% of your salary in Voltaren.
    Imagine reducing the salary of the pharmacist to 200chf/mo, that would lower the costs right?

    But are any of this solutions better than we have now?

  14. Not healthcare related, but – my favourite ever shower gel is the DM brand one. Because we don’t have DM here, I go buy it in Germany, where it costs 55 cents per bottle, but I would genuinely pay 5 euros for it.

    Recently I checked the bottle, and it turns out it’s made in Switzerland.

  15. Just so you know, “fabric” doesn’t mean what you think it means

  18. The swiss government doesn’t put strong limits on medicine prices, and pharmaceutical companies have strong political influence in switzerland. they take advantage of this to make big profits

  19. There is so much stupidity in your post I don‘t know where to start. You seem not to understand how prices work.

  20. It’s not just pharmaceuticals. You can buy Toblerone cheaper in Hong Kong than you can in Switzerland. You can buy New Zealand grown fruit cheaper in Australia than you can in New Zealand. Economics, isn’t it?

    But Swiss prices are a (bad) joke, especially health costs.

  21. The funny part is that if it would be a prescription medication your health insurance wouldn’t reimburse it bought in Brazil (or more realistically for many of us in France). And this is distorting the free market.

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