AVR hosted by Reinach BL

It was Monday 19 November, and the first flakes of snow were falling as the Roche Employees’ Association (AVR) held an hour-long information session at the Roche Pharma Switzerland (RPS) site in Reinach BL. A total of eight AVR Committee members led by site representative Marie-Reine Herr were available to tell interested employees all they wanted to know about the AVR. The opportunity drew plenty of interest: twelve people visited the info stand, two others connected via Hangouts. «They were curious to know, for example, what the AVR does as regards salary negotiations and reorganisations, or how it works together with Human Resources», said Marie-Reine Herr.

Once a year, the AVR visits Roche sites in Schlieren, Rotkreuz and Kaiseraugst. «We aim to raise awareness of the AVR and introduce ourselves to employees at their workplace», explains AVR President Adnan Tanglay. He says the idea is also to garner support for the AVR at local level, and find out more about what the various sites do.

And that’s exactly what happened on 19 November: following the Board meeting, during which topics such as flat hierarchies and the impact assessment were discussed, Daniel Meier (Director Human Resources) and Remo Christen (Director Market Access & Health Care Affairs) gave the AVR first-hand information about the role of RPS. Generating sales in excess of CHF 260 million last year, the site is focused primarily on innovative products in oncology, but also in rheumatology, pneumology and neurology. Thanks to this approach, RPS is the number one in the hospital market, and ranks fourth in the overall market.

The meeting attendees were also surprised to learn that, according to RPS, it is not medicine costs that are responsible for exploding healthcare costs in Switzerland. In 2015, for example, they only accounted for just under 13 percent of total healthcare costs.

RPS will soon be able to perform its activities even more effectively: the second half of 2019 will see the operation relocate to Gartenstrasse in Basel, which, among other things, will foster even stronger cross-departmental cooperation as well as cutting down travel time to headquarters. The impending move was another reason prompting the AVR’s visit to RPS in Reinach BL, while they still could...