OBJECTIVES Switzerland’s regulation of prices for reimbursed drugs is based on referencing across countries and within the therapeutic class for products with comparators. The SwissHTA initiative involving all key stakeholders in the healthcare systems (sickness funds, industry, physicians, academia, Kantons) has published consensus papers for new benefit criteria and measurements. METHODS A comparison was executed comparing the new proposed criteria against benefit assessments in HTA systems in Germany and the UK. RESULTS In terms of clinical benefit assessment the suggestion by SwissHTA follows accepted evidence-based methods. In comparison to Germany the Swiss approach suggests a pragmatic application by applying disease specific standards. This disease focus allows also accepting different levels of evidence given the characteristics of the disease. This pragmatic approach allows Swiss decision-makers accepting lower evidence levels at the time of launch (e.g. in case of comparison with non-Swiss standard-of-care) coupled with a post-reimbursement commitment. The Swiss method looks similar to the medical benefit application by NICE. In terms of health economic (HE) evaluations SwissHTA suggests focusing on technical efficiency instead of QALY comparisons across the whole system as in the UK. Such an approach avoids the application of arbitrarily defined cost-effectiveness thresholds. In Germany the HE focus is solely based on cost comparisons. In terms of decision-making in Germany the focus is based on  an assessment of the available evidence against a theoretical maximum standard of evidence. In the UK coverage decisions are based on cost-effectiveness assessments allowing for context-specific adjustments. In the SwissHTA recommendation a multi-criteria decision-making should be applied with an equal focus on all key aspects (e.g. clinical benefit, public relevance, social preferences, etc.). CONCLUSIONS In comparison to HTA systems in Germany and UK the SwissHTA recommendations seems to be more pragmatic and would follow a broader multi-criteria decision making approach.