Patient safety

Patient safety first and foremost means ensuring the quality and safety of our products and services along the entire value chain, from the supply chain to infrastructure and processes, right through to the targeted training of our employees. A key contribution is made by the professional advice provided in our pharmacies, where our specialists support the safe and effective use of medicines based on medical history, triage and individual support. Digitalisation also plays an important role. Thanks to state-of-the-art technologies such as clinical decision support systems, we strengthen patient safety and support healthcare professionals in making medication-related decisions.

Our objectives

We strive for the highest possible level of patient safety and customer satisfaction. Our aim is to ensure trustworthy and effective healthcare through safe products, reliable processes and professional advice.

Our management approach

To ensure patient safety, all Galenica Group companies have an extensive quality management system (QMS). Responsibility for this lies with the responsible person of the individual company.

Alloga, Medifilm, Mediservice, UFD and HCI Solutions are certified in accordance with ISO 9001 for quality management systems. Galexis and the companies in the Pharmacies division also work with process management systems that comply with ISO 9001 requirements, but are not currently certified. Bichsel and HCI Solutions meet the requirements of ISO 13485 for medical device manufacturers. Compliance with ISO standards is ensured by means of regular audits.

The Bichsel Group also meets the following requirements: Its quality management system (QMS) is based on the ICH-Q10 guideline, which was published specifically for pharmaceutical quality management systems. Bichsel holds operating licences for the manufacture and wholesale of medicinal products in accordance with the Therapeutic Products Act. For quality control purposes, the company carries out numerous chemical and microbiological analyses every day to check end products, raw materials and packaging materials.

Due to the high requirements in the manufacture of bottled, terminally sterilised and biological medicinal products, official inspections are generally carried out at Bichsel every two years. Inspections involve checking whether the statutory Good Manufacturing Practice and Good Distribution Practice requirements are being sufficiently adhered to. Following the inspection in April 2025, the Bichsel Group was issued with the GMP and GDP certificates applied for.

A new quality management system (QMS) has been in use since 2024 to ensure quality in the Amavita, Sun Store and Coop Vitality pharmacies. The QMS comprises mandatory work instructions (SOPs) for central processes such as drug production and dispensing, data protection, hygiene and disposal. Compliance is regularly checked through audits, test purchases, anonymous calls and inspections by cantonal pharmacists. In addition, our pharmacists receive regular training on the legal principles applicable to pharmacies. In 2025, 110 people completed this training course. For specialised services such as checks or vaccinations, they complete certified training courses, following which they are awarded certificates of competence. In addition, all pharmacy employees have completed quality training on a self-study basis in accordance with their area of responsibility.

Verfora offers training sessions for pharmacies when new medications are launched in order to promote employees’ skills and ensure patient safety and health. In 2025, Verfora held 125 training sessions for around 17,000 pharmacy assistants and pharmacists. The number of participants has thus increased by more than 50% compared to the previous year.

GDP guidelines for good distribution practice

We also set the highest standards in logistics to ensure patient safety. Alloga, Galexis, UFD, Pharmapool, Verfora and the Bichsel Group are obliged to consistently comply with the international rules of good distribution practice for medicinal products (Good Distribution Practice (GDP) guidelines). This is intended to prevent counterfeit medicinal products from entering the legal supply chain and to ensure the quality and integrity of the products along the entire distribution chain. The ambient temperature of the medicinal products is continuously monitored from the place of manufacture to delivery; in the event of deviations, measures are initiated immediately in accordance with GDP guidelines. Compliance with these requirements is regularly checked by the regional therapeutic products inspectorates on behalf of Swissmedic.

The GDP guidelines also apply to all logistics service providers contracted by us. In addition to the official controls carried out by Swissmedic, the quality departments of the Galenica companies also check compliance with the guidelines.

Regular employee training on GDP guidelines is carried out in-house and the corresponding process documentation is updated on an ongoing basis. In the context of process and quality management, internal improvement measures based on customer feedback and complaints are also actively initiated and implemented with the aim of continuous improvement.

Uninterrupted cold chain for medications

All Wholesale and Logistics companies, as well as Medifilm, Mediservice and Bichsel, provide an uninterrupted cold chain for the inspection, storage and transport of temperature-sensitive drugs. At Alloga, this also applies to so-called ultra-deep-freeze logistics, in other words, storage and dispatch at –80°C, the required temperature for a new generation of cancer drugs. Alloga and Galexis also use paraffin-filled cooling elements, which ensure a more stable temperature of the medicinal products over the transportation period.

Galexis, UFD, Pharmapool and the Bichsel Group operate their own vehicle fleets with a total of 178 delivery vans (up to 3.5 tonnes) and three lorries (14 to 22 tonnes). All vehicles are GDP-compliant and are fitted with an air conditioning system in the loading space, which is vital for the safe transport of medicinal products.

Continuous monitoring of all products

Product safety is checked and ensured using a variety of approaches. The relevant companies check the competence of the contract manufacturers by means of initial and regularly recurring audits. In the course of this, compliance with the GMP guidelines is assessed so that safe products for the patient can be produced at all times. The products are examined before being placed on the market to ensure that they have been manufactured and tested in accordance with the GMP guidelines and that they meet all applicable specifications. As with all medications, there is also preclinical and clinical data for Verfora products, which guarantees the safety and efficacy of the products.

Pharmacovigilance: forwarding of reports

Following market launch, pharmacovigilance is the focus: Bichsel and Verfora continuously monitor all products and analyse reports of side effects. All employees are obliged to forward such reports in full and on time. Information on the course, dosage and effects is documented and action taken if necessary. New employees receive a checklist on what to do in the event of side effects and receive appropriate training. Annual training for all employees complements this procedure. In addition, Verfora systematically checks advertisements and advertising posters to ensure they are correct and regularly analyses products in the laboratory until the end of their service life in order to identify quality deviations at an early stage.

In 2025, Verfora employees met the deadline for the internal forwarding of reports of side effects in 93% of cases (target: >90%). At Bichsel, the responsible parties met the deadline for forwarding reports of side effects to the authorities in 100% of cases. No violations were identified in the reporting year that would have compromised patient safety in connection with products or services.

Increased patient safety thanks to e-medication solution

To avoid medication errors, HCI Solutions provides key master data for the Swiss healthcare market and develops digital solutions in the area of e-health. With the process-integrated solution Documedis^®, the company makes a significant contribution to a safe and efficient healthcare system by offering specific e-health applications and services relating to the medication process.

Documedis^® is an e-health platform based on INDEX data and is already integrated into the medication process in pharmacy, physician and hospital software. Among other things, it offers Clinical Decision Support Checks (Documedis CDS.CE), which healthcare professionals use to check medications for risks, duplicate medications or allergies. There are currently 14 such CDS.CE Checks available. Documedis CDS.CE thus supports service providers when prescribing new medications or when supplementing existing medication.

Since 2023, the Documedis^® Vaccination module has been supplementing the platform with functions for documenting and checking vaccinations.

Documedis CDS.CE is key to patient safety: the checks show whether the planned medication involves risks that can be eliminated before it is dispensed to the patient.

In 2025, 553,282,298 CDS.CE Checks¹⁾ were carried out by service providers, which corresponds to an increase of 50% (previous year: 368,813,628). Target achievement by 2025 and 2030, respectively, is realistic.

In order to increase the number of CDS Checks, HCI held various workshops with clinic information providers.

¹⁾ ► 2025 Data externally assured (limited assurance)

Customer satisfaction

The satisfaction of our customers is at the heart of all our activities. To measure these, the net promoter score (NPS) provided by customers of the Amavita, Sun Store and Coop Vitality pharmacies is used and the distance compared to the average of the competitor is calculated. The NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a key figure that measures the extent to which customers recommend our pharmacy formats to others. The data collection process takes the form of a twice-yearly representative online market survey and involves asking over 2,000 pharmacy customers about their level of satisfaction and whether they recommend the pharmacy brand they use.

To increase customer satisfaction, Galenica invested in the education and training of pharmacy teams in 2025. The focus was primarily on conveying the importance of satisfied customers for long-term success and the implications of this on the behaviour of pharmacy staff during customer interactions.

Target achievement for 2025 is 78.8%¹⁾, meaning the annual target was significantly missed. For competitive reasons, Galenica does not disclose the actual figure or the gap to the best competitor.

¹⁾ ► 2025 Data externally assured (limited assurance)