Drug makers are urging US President Donald Trump’s administration and European Union officials to exclude medical products from potential tariff wars, according to Reuters.
The companies hope to prevent price hikes on Europe’s best-selling drugs, from Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy to Merck’s cancer immunotherapy Keytruda.
Pharmaceutical industry representatives argue that the EU tariffs will raise the cost of drugs and create access barriers for patients. Industry leaders have also called on the EU to refrain from retaliatory duties even if Trump includes drugs in the trade dispute.
However, Trump’s decision to raise duties on goods from China, including finished medicines and raw ingredients, as well as the initial round of duties between the US and EU on goods such as steel and bourbon, have raised expectations that medicines will join the list.
Most medicines imported from China have a low monetary value, but the US depends on drugs partly produced in Europe, pharmaceutical company representatives said. Last week, Trump criticised Ireland for luring pharmaceutical companies with tax breaks, contributing to a “massive deficit.”
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the US and EU’s reliance on China and India for raw materials to make critical medicines and hospital supplies, as governments competed for materials used in vaccines and protective gear. Since then, many major drug manufacturers have sought to break supply chains for Western and Chinese markets.
Meanwhile, a senior executive at a European drugmaker said that creating an entirely American manufacturing process would mean diverting funds away from research into future drugs and would amount to “fixing something that is not broken.”
