Facts
Company A. appealed against the decision of the Federal Administrative Court, according to which Swissmedic must grant the opposing party B. access to certain personal data of the company experts who were transmitted to Swissmedic as part of the approval procedure for the medicinal product C. The Federal Supreme Court partially upheld the appeal and instructed Swissmedic to hear the affected company experts before deciding on access to their personal data.Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court states that there is a general public interest in the transparency of the approval procedure for medicinal products, as this serves to protect public health. The reports of the company experts attached to the application for approval constitute an important part of the application documents, as they contain a factual and critical assessment of the efficacy, safety and benefit-risk ratio of the preparation. Therefore, there is a comprehensible public interest in knowing who performs this function.
The private interest of the company experts in the protection of their privacy and informational self-determination, on the other hand, is not particularly weighty. The potential disadvantages for the company experts claimed by the appellant, such as negative reporting or poaching, appear rather hypothetical and…