What an American drug price could cost Switzerland
A Swiss price agreed for one medicine could influence what its maker earns across a far larger market. Zürich researchers have modelled what happens next.
Suppose a company agrees to a lower price for a new drug in Switzerland. If the US uses that price to set its own, the company has a reason to hold out in Swiss negotiations. The size of the American market changes the arithmetic even before either country pays a bill.
Researchers at ETH and the University of Zürich modelled what would happen if Switzerland and other reference countries responded by accepting higher prices. In that scenario, SRF reports, the additional Swiss cost could run to hundreds of millions of francs a year. The study used proposals as they stood in December 2025. The range of medicines covered has since narrowed for some models, and the terms of other agreements are private.
The Swiss health office says the argument is already being made in negotiations. It also reports roughly as many reimbursement applications as last year. For Swiss households, the exposure is through insurance costs over time. For pharmaceutical companies, the immediate decision is where and when to seek reimbursement for a new treatment. ETH research record
2 marketsOne Swiss price negotiation A potential US reference price
Newcastle’s delayed leisure centre has cleared a construction milestone as winter approaches.
Wine
Counting bats in Margaux
A decade after the first survey, observers returned to the same 14 points among the vines.
People
Paul Swaddle’s six requests
Westminster’s council leader set out what he wanted for West End traders in a public letter to the Chancellor.
Local News
On the streets and by the lake
Fire barricades on Langstrasse bring police into Kreis 4
1 November. Police say several hundred people gathered around Langstrasse on Saturday night for an unauthorised demonstration. Some participants set fire to barricades and a car. The cantonal force assisted city officers and reported two arrests. SRF’s footage puts the events around Langstrasse and Helvetiaplatz, and distinguishes them from a separate demonstration in Basel, where public transport was temporarily interrupted. SRF report and video · German
Wollishofen’s lakeside park depends on a land deal
29 October. The city wants to extend the public park between Landiwiese and the Cassiopeiasteg beyond the Rote Fabrik. Parts of the land it needs belong to KIBAG. The council has prepared zoning changes and is opening negotiations over future use of the plots. What happens to this stretch of shoreline now turns on those talks, even though the planning documents already show a larger park. City of Zürich · German
A detour for the approach to the Pavillon Le Corbusier
2 November. From 09:00 today the section of Höschgasse between Zollikerstrasse and Mühlebachstrasse closes. The city directs traffic via Münchhaldenstrasse or Feldeggstrasse and expects the restriction to last until 30 April. That is worth knowing if you approach the lakeside museum by road for Sunday’s English tour. The museum itself lists the tour at its usual Höschgasse 8 address. City traffic notice · German
A parent’s concern can trigger escalation in English A&E
2 November. England’s new paediatric early warning system asks emergency staff to record and score children’s vital signs while they wait. A high score flags the need for urgent attention. A concern raised by a parent, a carer, a staff member or the child can also trigger immediate escalation. For anyone designing clinical training, the important detail is that a person can speak up even before the measurements point in the same direction. BBC News
Swiss voters will decide how tightly to regulate arms exports
2 November. The 29 November vote would loosen export rules if the change passes. SRF describes two quite different experiences of the industry. Established arms makers argue that export restrictions limit the orders they can accept, while civilian manufacturers are finding new demand for components. Switzerland has around 140 defence companies, with about 3,000 smaller businesses supplying parts. A single sales figure can conceal which side of that divide a firm occupies. SRF · German
In Vaud, an emergency shelter has become a home for months
1 November. Around a hundred refugees are living in civil-defence shelters because the canton lacks accommodation. In Clarens, residents describe the effects of sleeping underground for months, including poor sleep, little daylight and memories of the war returning at night. RTS’s interviews, carried by SRF, give those experiences a place alongside the administrative description of a shortage of beds. RTS reporting via SRF · German
One day before the US midterms, a small polling error could matter twice
2 November. Polling gives Democrats a path to a House majority, but control of the Senate hinges on several exceptionally close races. The BBC’s Anthony Zurcher explains why last-minute decisions and who agrees to answer a poll can shift several states in the same direction. For Tuesday night, the distinction to keep in mind is between the number of seats a party leads in today’s surveys and the number it actually wins. BBC analysis
Congo revises its Ebola toll after checking earlier deaths
2 November. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s public-health institute reports 10,414 confirmed infections and 5,372 deaths. A records review in Ituri added 314 earlier deaths, bringing the reported case-fatality ratio to 51.6%. Those deaths entering the total together explains much of the apparent jump. The outbreak now spans eight provinces, making reliable reporting from each affected zone part of the public-health response itself. Bloomberg via The Straits Times
Bulgaria elects its first woman president
2 November. Near-final election commission figures put acting President Iliana Iotova and her running mate on 57.58%, with 99.95% of precinct protocols processed. Reuters reports about 1.1 million votes for their ticket, against roughly 749,500 for its nearest rival. Low turnout qualifies the size of the mandate. The historical change is clear even as the commission completes the count. Reuters via The Straits Times
Richmond asks who should get first choice of a council home
30 October. A resident who leaves temporary accommodation for certain private rentals can currently lose their place on Richmond’s housing register. The council proposes letting them keep it. Other changes would allow some households to bid for suitable homes and give greater priority to tenants who downsize. The consultation runs to 18 January. Its scope is the order in which scarce homes are offered, a difference that matters to someone deciding whether to accept a private tenancy now. Twickenham Nub News
Two pools take shape after six years without one in West Denton
1 November. Concrete walls are in place for Newcastle’s 25-metre pool and its smaller training pool at the Outer West Leisure Centre. The old facility closed during the pandemic. With winter coming, the contractors’ next task is to erect the steel frame. Residents are also waiting for a library, gym and sports hall at the site. The council still hopes to finish the development by the end of 2027. Chronicle Live
Washington’s National Mall gets its sculpture garden back
31 October. Hiroshi Sugimoto’s redesign of the Hirshhorn garden opened on Saturday after four years of work. Nearly sixty sculptures now occupy the garden and plaza. Among the quieter changes are stone walls and a reflective underground passage that makes people crossing it part of the view. On the West Lawn, Yoshitomo Nara has enlarged three small clay heads into monumental sculptures. It is an unusually good moment to revisit a familiar Washington institution through photographs. Hirshhorn Museum
On view 24 October–29 January. Ten unusual instructions from Zürich art collective !Mediengruppe Bitnik appear in public at the Josefstrasse energy centre. The city’s examples include “Work slowly” and “Cry on Zoom”. On a commuter’s route, the red lettering borrows the authority of a workplace notice, then offers advice few managers would put on the wall. For a street-art hunter, the location is part of the piece. For someone who writes instructions for a living, so is the tone. City of Zürich · German
Aspen Golann turns embroidery into furniture too large to put away
30 October. A piece of needlework can disappear into a drawer. Golann’s Crewel Cabinet stands five feet four inches tall. To render the colour changes of embroidery in wood, she built each of 37 staves from 14 coloured layers, then carved plants and animals into the surface. Colossal’s close-ups let you see how the furniture maker makes a pattern change colour by cutting deeper. The technique gives otherwise easily overlooked work an imposing physical presence. Colossal
Cy Kuckenbaker photographs the West Coast through cardboard and glass
30 October. For Everything Twice, Kuckenbaker made cameras from cardboard boxes and magnifying glasses bought at a drugstore. He began making photographs this way as a respite from burnout. Alongside the landscapes runs another story, his long search for an explanation of a change around one eye that he had attributed to an accident. The photographs and his account both ask what happens when a familiar way of seeing becomes unreliable. Colossal
The small-gallery pick opens on Thursday for six days
5–10 November. Galerie 111 gives Dieter Kubli and Max Weber a six-day slot on Zweierstrasse. Their joint show DIES + DAS opens on Thursday from 17:00 to 21:00. That evening is the advertised four-hour window to aim for. The gallery posts each show’s invitation separately, so use the invitation for other visiting hours before heading over. Galerie 111 · invitation
On Friday, the audience fills the improvisers’ piggy banks
6 November. Theater Ida gathers performers from different ensembles for scenes and characters built from audience suggestions. The evening has a running vote of sorts, with the audience deciding whose piggy bank fills up. It is an appealing choice if you enjoy comparing how different performers handle the same prompt. The advertised show runs 19:00–21:15 and tickets are CHF10–20. Theater Ida · programme
One afternoon, three ways to see Labouring Bodies close
8 November. At Museum Tinguely, Clara Bausch re-enacts a work after Margaret Raspé at 15:00. A curator-led tour follows at 16:00, before Ernestyna Orlowska performs Make Your Body Your Machine at 17:00. The first performance lasts about twenty minutes. The final one is free, so there is a short, self-contained visit even if you cannot make the whole afternoon in Basel. Museum Tinguely · programme
In Margaux, the bat detectors went back to the same fourteen places
2 November. Growers in Margaux have planted 19.5 kilometres of hedges and left 189 hectares to be mown later. A decade after a first biodiversity survey, observers returned to 14 sampling points. Bat detections rose 36% and the number of wild bees counted rose 15%. The butterfly survey changed its method between visits, making that comparison less clear. The pleasure of this French report is its specificity. Even the drainage ditch beside the vines has a part in the story. Vitisphere · French
Where did California’s wine grapes go? Two acreage figures tell different stories
30 October. Mapping partners counted 439,115 acres of standing wine grapes on 1 August. They identified 47,229 acres removed since the previous October, while the difference between the two annual statewide totals was smaller, at 38,360 acres. Newly captured vineyards, revised classifications and field boundaries explain the gap. WineNews puts the removals in the context of changing demand. The grower group’s figures are particularly revealing for anyone trying to read a vintage through planted area alone. Napa Valley Grapegrowers · project results
1 November. Before establishing Vulpes Wines in 2022, Nuschka de Vos worked with viticulturist Rosa Kruger and spent six years at Reyneke, the South African organic and biodynamic producer. Christian Eedes has reviewed her latest releases for Winemag. That path from vineyard work to a label of her own is a good reason to look beyond the familiar estate names. The full tasting notes are available to subscribers. Winemag · South Africa, subscription
2 November. Andreas Ehstand proposes giving learners a plausible AI answer and asking them to check the source, its date and the conclusion drawn from it. Each step can fail separately. A genuine regulation may have been superseded, and a current document may say something narrower than the model claims. For regulated learning, this creates a practical assessment task. A learner can show exactly which passage supports a decision to accept, amend or reject an answer. The Learning Guild
Swiss newsrooms use AI every day. What does it save?
2 November. SRF asked media groups how they use AI and what they can measure. Transcribing interviews, proposing headlines and making summaries are established uses. Tamedia says journalists check the results. Ringier’s strategy lead says it has yet to quantify the overall gain. For a capability team evaluating a pilot, the interesting unit is the finished, checked task. Counting minutes saved on a first draft alone leaves out the editor who must trace a quotation back to the recording. SRF interviews · German
Binance reopens and customers withdraw $3.6 billion
2 November. After a breach that affected $6.3 billion in digital assets, customers withdrew $3.6 billion as the exchange resumed transactions on Sunday. Those figures measure two different events. Binance says it has covered roughly 95% of the stolen assets and intends to cover the remainder. The FBI has attributed the attack to North Korea. For financial-services teams, the incident offers a case in communicating what has been recovered, what remains outstanding and when customers can act. BBC News
A government-backed report says AI systems now generate more inference tokens than they used in training, a measure of activity with little to say by itself about work quality.
Citizens Advice seeks an interim head through an organisational redesign
Posted 29 October · closes 15 November. The clearest strategic match today is Head of Learning, Leadership and Culture. Citizens Advice wants someone to lead specialists in leadership development, talent, learning and wellbeing while it reviews its operating model. The role pays £71,406 with a London allowance where applicable, for 36.25 hours a week over three to four months. The practical constraint is geography. Its blended office and home arrangement is in England and Wales. Citizens Advice · original advert
ISHA has a one-year brief to design and evaluate an entire learning plan
Closes 11 November · 09:00 UK / 10:00 Zürich. Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association’s Learning and Development Lead owns the annual plan and works with subject experts from scoping through evaluation. This is a hands-on individual contributor role with no direct reports, at £44,440 for 35 hours a week. The employer lists a north London base and requires existing UK work eligibility. One detail worth catching early is that the cover letter must answer all five specified questions. ISHA · original advert
Shortlist reminder for a permanent London Head of L&D
Rechecked 2 November · closes 23 November. Handle’s original advert remains open for a hybrid role with a creative organisation. The remit spans senior-manager development, a small team, budget responsibility and evidence of business impact. The employer is unnamed and the salary negotiable. Against the two fixed-term roles above, this option offers a permanent leadership remit and less information about the organisation you would join. Handle Recruitment · BBBH101057
The Swaddle Daily · AppointmentsDesk 09
Sports
Mexico City, west London and Colovray
Antonelli is champion at 20, while a late ruling costs McLaren
Race 1 November · updated 2 November. Max Verstappen won in Mexico City, Lewis Hamilton finished second and Kimi Antonelli took the third place he needed to become Formula 1’s youngest world champion, aged 20 years and 68 days. McLaren’s Lando Norris finished fifth after starting sixth. Oscar Piastri crossed the line seventh from twelfth on the grid, then lost his points after the stewards penalised contact with Arvid Lindblad. The post-race ruling matters if you last checked at the flag. BBC Sport · race report
Brentford marks its hundredth Premier League home fixture at the Gtech with a win
31 October. Brentford beat Nottingham Forest 2–0. Dango Ouattara’s work forced a Nikola Milenković own goal before half-time. Igor Thiago supplied the late second that left Forest without a route back. Coming after Wednesday’s cup exit at Sunderland, the clean sheet changes the weekend story as much as the two goals. Sky has the match highlights, including the move that put Brentford in front. Sky Sports · report and video
Two GC Zürich sides win on the same pitch in Nyon
1 November. The Valkyries won the noon women’s fixture 62–21 against the Nyon Mermigans, scoring ten tries at Colovray. At 16:00 the men’s first team beat Nyon 43–24, scoring six. The federation’s results give each match its own entry and team sheet. For a Zurich supporter scanning a long weekend list, these are the LNFA and LNA results respectively. Swiss Rugby Federation · results
Westminster, a professional connection and the Wallaroos
What Paul Swaddle asked the Chancellor for the West End
27 October · catch-up. Westminster’s council leader published six requests ahead of last week’s Budget. Two would change a visitor’s day directly. He asked for VAT refunds for overseas shoppers and the power to extend Sunday opening in designated districts, subject to consultation and safeguards for workers and residents. He also asked to keep more locally generated business-rate growth for streets and services. The original letter records his proposals in his own words. Westminster City Council · signed letter
Andrew Grill takes a question about AI trust to London
12 November · forward diary. Grill’s next listed keynote is Scaling Trust in the Age of AI at Mail Metrics’ Communicate 26, at 22 Bishopsgate. It is a public appearance to watch from your professional network. The setting gives the subject a particular edge. In customer communications, being able to explain who checked a message can matter as much as producing it quickly. The organiser and the speaker both list the event for Thursday 12 November. Andrew Grill · speaking calendar
Faitala Moleka becomes the youngest Wallaroos player of the year
29 October · awards catch-up. The 21-year-old playmaker received the award at Rugby Australia’s annual honours. She spoke from Christchurch, where she was preparing for an under-21 fixture, and credited the people behind the Wallaroos’ season. She had just been recognised at the top of the senior game while still young enough to play alongside her age-group peers. Rugby Australia · interview
2–8 November. Galerie 111 opens DIES + DAS on Thursday at 17:00. The Gantenbein tasting in Regensdorf begins at 19:00, so those two plans compete for the same evening. Friday’s improv at Ida and Sunday’s English architecture tour offer alternatives in town. Looking one week further ahead, the ISHA application deadline is Wednesday 11 November at 10:00 Zürich time. The cover letter has five required answers, each capped at 300 words.
Give the reviewer a turn in your next AI pilot
Monday’s design exercise. Take one short procedure and give two colleagues the same AI-written summary. Include one obsolete instruction and one plausible inference the procedure does not support. Ask each colleague to mark the disputed passages, locate the current wording and record the time taken. Compare where they disagreed before showing the answer. Repeating that exercise on a fresh procedure a week later lets you see whether people learnt to check claims independently. The Learning Guild · the checking routine behind the exercise
The five-by-five wall
Original pixel puzzle. Draw a grid five squares wide and five high. Each clue gives the lengths of consecutive runs of inked squares, in order. Leave at least one blank between runs. A clue of 1 + 2 therefore means a single square, a gap, then a pair.
Which little wall creature appears? If you need a first move, the middle row and the row below it each have only one possible filling.
The Swaddle Daily · The Back PageDesk 12
Puzzle solution — open when ready
Read each row from left to right, with X as ink and dots as empty squares: X...X / .X.X. / XXXXX / X.X.X / .X.X. . Start with the solid middle row and the alternating fourth row. Columns 1 and 5 need a separate single mark above their pair in rows 3–4, forcing both top corners. The remaining column clues fix the two alternating rows. Exactly one grid satisfies all ten clues.