The interest in pharmaceutical agents is shared by key players pursuing the same general objective: to discover, test and treat patients. In this race, the pharmaceutical industries, regulatory bodies, physicians, patients, payers have various motivations, incentives and conflicting interests. As in most industrialised countries, Switzerland is expected to provide the best medicines to the largest number of patients using a limited budget, leaving the country struggling to reach a compromise between drug companies' profit maximization and authorities' cost containment issues. This thesis aims to describe the life cycle of a drug to give the reader a deeper knowledge of the key elements, different perspectives, and winning strategies that policy makers face when making highly valuable decisions.