Pharmaceutical Industry in Policy Process: Addressing Drug Shortages in Switzerland

Drug shortages represent an increasingly significant global challenge, which affects Switzerland despite its status as home to some of the world’s most successful pharmaceutical companies (Buclin & Lonchampt, 2025). The role and regulation of pharmaceutical companies in Swiss policy processes remain an underexplored topic in the public policy literature. Some interdisciplinary insights stress the multifaceted role of the pharmaceutical industry – as a market actor, a provider of health products, and an influential national player (Abraham, 2010; Abrahamsen, 2022; Guillod, 2013). Furthermore, some studies outlined the significance of careers and trajectories in the pharmaceutical sector and its lobbying (Abraham, 2010; Unsal, 2020). While existing contributions to political science shed light on how companies adapt to regulatory frameworks (Maggetti, 2009; Töller, 2017), it remains unclear how the industry presents internally heterogenous group affiliations based on which it intervenes, directly or indirectly, in policy processes. To address this gap, this paper will examine the involvement of pharmaceutical companies through the theoretical concept of social identity in public policy (SIPP) (Hornung et al., 2019). This allows a new approach and, therefore, a theoretical contribution to the analysis of how social identities can explain individuals’ behaviours and decisions. How do social identities shape the policy process in the answering to drug shortages in Switzerland? How do the social identities of actors directly or indirectly connected to the pharmaceutical industry differ or overlap? By answering these questions, this paper seeks to link individuals’ behaviours to their social identity. The main hypothesis posits that the pharmaceutical industry, understood as both a sector and a heterogeneous group, fosters identities that are distinct from mere interests. These identities will be examined empirically using qualitative methods. Abraham, J. (2010). Pharmaceuticalization of Society in Context: Theoretical, Empirical and Health Dimensions. Sociology, 44(4), 603–622. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038510369368 Abrahamsen, Y. (2022). Die Wirtschaftliche Bedeutung der pharmazeutischen Industrie in der Schweiz [Application/pdf]. 13 p. https://doi.org/10.3929/ETHZ-B-000554322 Buclin, T., & Lonchampt, S. (2025). Pénurie de médicaments: « Les actions concrètes restent relativement limitées ». Revue Médicale Suisse, 21(904), 249–250. https://doi.org/10.53738/REVMED.2025.21.904.249 Guillod, O. (2013). Transparence et conflits d’intérêts dans le secteur pharmaceutique: Un aperçu du droit suisse. Journal du Droit de la Santé et de l’Assurance - Maladie (JDSAM), 1(1), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.3917/jdsam.131.0012 Hornung, J., Bandelow, N. C., & Vogeler, C. S. (2019). Social identities in the policy process. Policy Sciences, 52(2), 211–231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-018-9340-6 Maggetti, M. (2009). The role of independent regulatory agencies in policy-making: A comparative analysis. Journal of European Public Policy, 16(3), 450–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501760802662854 Töller, A. E. (2017). Voluntary Regulation by the Pharmaceutical Industry—Which Role for the Shadow of Hierarchy and Social Pressure? European Policy Analysis, 3(1), 48–80. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1006 Unsal, O. (2020). Two faces of corporate lobbying: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry. The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 51, 100858.