Federal Supreme Court, Decision 9C_710/2020 of 10 August 2021

7 septembre 2021 – In this decision, the Federal Supreme Court had to assess whether the lower court violated federal law by confirming the reduction in the price of the appellant's medicine ordered by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) as part of the triennial review of the conditions for inclusion of the preparations listed in the specialities list. Specifically, the court had to examine whether the FOPH's procedure of carrying out the therapeutic cross-comparison (TQV) with medicines within the same gamma was permissible. The appellant argued that the boundaries between the two product groups (Oral and OralRetard) were fluid and insignificant from a therapeutic point of view, so that the medicines it put forward for the TQV constituted therapeutic alternatives even without a retardation effect, which is why they also had to be taken into account by the FOPH within the framework of the TQV.

The Federal Supreme Court stated that the FOPH is not obliged to include all of the potentially available comparative medicinal products - i.e. those in the same gamma - in the TQV. In addition, there was no objective reason to extend the TQV to other medicines in other gammas. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed.

For more information, see here.