Federal Act
on Medicinal Products and Medical Devices
(Therapeutic Products Act, TPA)

¹ The Agency and the oth­er au­thor­it­ies en­trus­ted with the en­force­ment of this Act may with­in their jur­is­dic­tion take all ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures ne­ces­sary to en­force this Act.¹⁷⁰

² In par­tic­u­lar they may:¹⁷¹

a.

raise ob­jec­tions and set an ap­pro­pri­ate time peri­od for restor­ing the state of law;

b.

sus­pend or re­voke li­cences and mar­ket­ing au­thor­isa­tions;

c.

close down es­tab­lish­ments;

d.

seize, hold in of­fi­cial stor­age or des­troy thera­peut­ic products which en­danger health or which do not con­form to the reg­u­la­tions of this Act;

e.

pro­hib­it the dis­tri­bu­tion, dis­pens­ing, im­port, ex­port and for­eign trade from Switzer­land of thera­peut­ic products, or­der their im­me­di­ate re­call from the mar­ket, or or­der the pub­lic­a­tion of re­com­mend­a­tions of con­duct to pre­vent dam­age;

f.

seize, hold in of­fi­cial stor­age, des­troy or pro­hib­it the use of il­leg­al ad­vert­ising me­dia, and pub­lish the pro­hib­i­tion at the ex­pense of the re­spons­ible parties;

g.

tem­por­ar­ily or per­man­ently pro­hib­it the ad­vert­ising of a spe­cif­ic thera­peut­ic product in the event of ser­i­ous or re­peated in­fringe­ments of the pro­vi­sions of this Act, and pub­lish the pro­hib­i­tion at the ex­pense of the re­spons­ible parties.

³ They may or­der thera­peut­ic products from a per­son un­der a fic­ti­tious name if:

a.

they sus­pect that the per­son is man­u­fac­tur­ing, im­port­ing or ex­port­ing thera­peut­ic products il­leg­ally or pla­cing them on the mar­ket il­leg­ally; and

b.

pre­vi­ous en­quir­ies have been un­suc­cess­ful or fur­ther en­quir­ies would oth­er­wise be fu­tile or would be dis­pro­por­tion­ately dif­fi­cult.¹⁷²

⁴ The cus­toms au­thor­it­ies shall be en­titled to hold back ship­ments of thera­peut­ic products at the bor­der, in a free port or in a cus­toms ware­house if they sus­pect that the re­cip­i­ent or sender in Switzer­land is in breach of the pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing the im­port, man­u­fac­ture, pla­cing on the mar­ket or ex­port of thera­peut­ic products with the con­tents of the ship­ment.¹⁷³

⁵They may call in the en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies. The lat­ter shall make any fur­ther en­quir­ies and take the ne­ces­sary meas­ures. In par­tic­u­lar, they may ask postal ser­vice pro­viders for the name and ad­dress of the hold­er of a post of­fice box. In this case, the pro­viders are ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion.¹⁷⁴

⁶ The en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies shall in­form the per­sons con­cerned at the latest after the com­ple­tion of the pro­ced­ure of:

a.

the or­der un­der a fic­ti­tious name;

b.

the re­quest for in­form­a­tion and the reas­on for it.¹⁷⁵