3 Questions to Urs Vögeli – Managing Director Janssen Switzerland, VP Johnson & Johnson Switzerland

What do you want to focus on in your role as Vice-President of Interpharma?

My priority in this role is to work personally to ensure that patients in Switzerland have the fastest possible access to innovative therapies. I am also committed to ensuring that Switzerland remains a highly attractive location for the life science industry in the future – in research & development, production, but also as a location for international headquarters.

Where do you see the most urgent challenges for Switzerland as a pharmaceutical location?

We are fortunate to have a location where universities, start-ups, global companies and leading hospitals work closely together – to the benefit of patients. I see a need to catch up in digitalization of the healthcare system – Switzerland is clearly lagging behind in this area, ultimately to the detriment of the population and research. We at Interpharma are working on concrete proposals for solutions and are ready to actively cooperate in their implementation – together with all players in the healthcare sector.

The Interpharma Annual Report 2021 focused on the Sustainable Development Goals. What is Johnson & Johnson doing in this area?

Health and sustainability are two inseparable topics. That is why sustainability is a fundamental part of Johnson & Johnson’s efforts. In Switzerland, we have partnered with a leading hospital group to implement a recycling project that returns valuable materials from operating rooms to the resource cycle. Another example is “Safe Returns”, where patients suffering from psoriasis or Crohn’s disease simply put their injection syringes in a bag in their own mailbox, the post office collects the bag and we recycle the syringes at our plant in Schaffhausen.