President Trump fired off a Truth Social post Thursday evening outlining imminent plans for 100% tariffs on "any branded or patented pharmaceutical product" imports.
The president noted an exemption: “unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America. “IS BUILDING” will be defined as, “breaking ground” and/or “under construction.” There will, therefore, be no Tariff on these Pharmaceutical Products if construction has started.”
Given the exemption , European big pharma stocks held steady Friday morning after Trump’s overnight tariff announcement on imported drugs, as most of these companies already have US production facilities, plants under construction, or plans to break ground .
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/health/trump-tariffs-drug-prices-manufacturing.html
big drugmakers like Roche, Novartis and AstraZeneca do some manufacturing in their home countries of Switzerland and Britain, which are not part of the European Union. To avoid paying tariffs of 100 percent on those products, they would most likely need to tell the Trump administration they plan to move some of that production to a factory they are building in the United States.
many industry titans may mostly avoid having to pay 100 percent tariffs, although they will probably soon have to pay up to 15 percent on at least some of their drugs imported from Europe.
GSK and Lilly to spend billions on US manufacturing