Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
An antibiotic package and several other medications on a table in a pharmacy.
Image Alliance | Image Alliance | Getty images
The pharmaceutical companies in Europe are rushed to prepare for the possible consequences of the import tariffs of the USA., With some “work groups” trainers “, even when analysts warn that the collectors of the sector could break the global commercial rules.
Forenio Medical Care He says he has installed his first “tariff work group” to manage uncertainty about the commercial positions proposed by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and is likely to be directly affected.
“Clearly, we are seeing what happens with tariffs in Europe and what also happens with tariffs (in) medical equipment,” said CEO Helen Giza to the “European Squawk Box” of CNBC last week.
“The climbing and speed of this, with the executive orders, is something we gathered quite fast,” Giza said about the working group.
President Trump pointed out on Wednesday that the European Union can be next to sweep 25% rates In its exports to the United States, reflecting similar threats to Canada and Mexico. He arrived a week after Trump said he was considering a flat position of around 25% in all pharmaceutical, automatic and chips imports.
The suggestion has promoted the concern of some analysts, who say that such duties in the pharmaceutical industry would mark an infraction of the rules established by the World Trade Organization, which has the United States as a member.
According to the WTO pharmaceutical agreement in 1994, most pharmaceutical products and substances used to produce are exempt from tariffs, joining them at taxes free of taxes. However, Diederik Stadig, an Ing sector economist, said the provision may not be enough to avoid the plans of the White House leader.
“I do not believe that the infraction of the WTO is sufficient to cause an exemption from reciprocal tariffs,” Stadig told CNBC by email on Monday, calling the launch of rates of rates tasks as a “prudent commercial movement.”
“It seems that the Trump administration really doesn’t care (if you break the WTO rules),” Sydbank, CNBC, told Soren Lontoft), CNBC on Friday.
A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comments on the possibility of commercial infraction. A spokesman for the WTO Secretariat said that “he does not comment on the specific actions of our members, whether proposed or real,” but added that participants could raise concerns about the actions of other members or initiate dispute solution procedures.
Rate task groups
The uncertainty about Trump’s proposals, and its viability, serves as a great headache for European companies.
European pharmaceutical companies would be among the most affected by radical tariffs on the sector. The United States consumed around $ 560 billion in pharmaceutical products in 2024, more than a third of which were imported, mainly from Ireland, Germany and Switzerland, according to the calculations of ING.
“These are the countries that will be affected particularly in case the threat comes true,” Stadig wrote in a note last month.
Germany’s medical care said that tariffs would probably achieve the supply of the group of dialysis and consumer products to the United States, even when some of the company’s manufactures in the United States remain isolated.
Alcon The CEO David Endicott said that the American Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices Company was “paying a lot of attention to the taxes. Despite seeing a limited exposure at a direct import-export level level, Endicott pointed out possible concerns about the supply chains of the company, including imports of raw materials.
“We do not see a great exhibition here, but it is a dynamic moment,” he told CNBC on Wednesday.
Brian McNamara, CEO of British Multinational Consumer Healthcare Company HaleónMeanwhile, he said Thursday that, although a large part of the company’s US sales derive from national production, the business was “working through what could be the impact” of rates on one of its plants in Canada and several more in Europe.
One of the declared objectives of Trump’s tariffs is to boost the domestic manufacture of the United States, encouraging companies to locate their production. On Monday, the Pfizer CEO suggested that the American drug manufacturer could move part of its manufacture abroad to its US plants to mitigate the highest costs.
“If something happens, we will try to mitigate it by transferring from the manufacturing sites outside the manufacturing sites here,” Albert Bourla told the Annual Health Conference of TD Cowen.
Even so, economists have questioned the logic of such strategy and the ability of companies to increase the capacity within the president of the president.
“It will take time to build manufacturing plants and use inactive manufacturing capacity,” said Stadig. “Secondly, the economies of scale for the generic production of API (active pharmaceutical ingredients) in India and China are so significant that even with a 25%rate, the generic API production is not necessarily cheaper in the third of the United States, it will be difficult to quickly obtain raw materials.”
Meanwhile, others have warned that additional taxes will only be used to increase prices in the already expensive US health sector.
“Many companies have a global supply chain, so in one way or another it will damage companies, or other members of the US Medical Care System. UU. UU. Sett -complex,” said Lontoft of Sydbank.
