Big pharma fears best-selling drugs in crosshairs of US-EU tariff spat

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

March 18, 2025 1:06 PM EDT Updated 4 hours ago


LONDON, March 18 (Reuters) - Drugmakers are urging the Trump administration and European Union officials to exclude medical goods from expanding tariff wars, hoping to avert price spikes on top-selling medicines made in Europe from Novo Nordisk's (NOVOb.CO), opens new tab Wegovy for weight loss to Merck's (MRK.N) cancer immunotherapy Keytruda.

In conversations with U.S. officials, the pharmaceutical industry argued that tariffs on the EU would increase drug costs and create access barriers for patients, endangering priorities outlined in President Donald Trump's health-related executive orders on drug pricing and increasing life expectancy of Americans, according to more than a half dozen pharma industry sources with direct knowledge of the discussions.

Some are signalling a willingness to expand manufacturing in the United States, while pressing for tax breaks and regulatory changes that would make it easier to make that happen, according to three of the sources. "We are firmly delivering the message to the Trump administration and to the European Union that patients will pay the price" for tariffs, said a senior executive at a European drugmaker. Industry executives are also pressing their case with officials in Brussels, urging the EU hold off on retaliatory tariffs even if Trump includes medicines in a trade dispute, several of the sources said. Some raised the fact that lifesaving medicines were excluded from sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

"We as Western countries have interconnected supply chains in this sector. Interrupting these flows will hurt patient access to lifesaving medicines," said a senior executive at another large European drugmaker. "It's a lose-lose" situation. Pharmaceutical products have long been spared from trade wars due to the potential harms. But Trump's move to increase tariffs on goods from China, including finished drugs and raw ingredients, as well as an initial round of tariffs between the U.S. and EU on goods like steel and bourbon, has raised expectations that medicines will join the list.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/big-pharma-fears-best-selling-drugs-crosshairs-us-eu-tariff-spat-2025-03-18/

[Attilatheblond]

1. Cannot fathom why huge corporations have not put the whammy on Musk/Trump 'policies'

If people are being hurt economically, corporations will not have the customer base they need. GOP won't listen to us, but the corporations need to consider: are possible future tax cuts really gonna fill their piggy banks if they can't sell goods/services? We the PEOPLE are the ones that create the products/services they sell. If we are robbed blind, there are no customers, which are also all of us.

[LiberalArkie]

2. Money

If an item coming into the the U.S. costs the importer $1.00 and the importer sells it to a distributor for $1.05.
A 20% tariff makes the cost to the importer $1.20. The 5% markup becomes $1.26. An easy 6 cents additional profit to forward to the distributor for his markup, to the benefit manager for the markup and to the pharmacy for its markup..

The nice thing about tariffs is that it eliminates someone undercutting the price as everyone has to pay it and no one has to accept the blame for the pice being higher.

[Attilatheblond]

3. But if Americans are out of work in coming recession, and retirees don't get earned pensions, nobody will be buying.

WE are the geese that lay corporations golden eggs.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Yep, they always forget the little things.. Kind of like that the Smoot Hawley Act and what precipitated from it.

[Javaman]

5. Oh don't fret little pharma, dry those tears

Just pay the orange asshole his protection money and all is fixed