Drug pricing

A new survey from CRB showed that most manufacturing initiatives in the U.S. made in response to tariffs are coming from Big Pharma companies, while smaller biotechs are left to hope “the situation doesn’t get worse.”

Expanded exemptions for orphan drugs could mean prolonged protections for top-selling drugs like Merck’s Keytruda, which was initially approved under this designation in 2014.

President Donald Trump last week announced that 100% pharma tariffs would come Oct. 1, but a White House official has clarified that that’s when the government will “begin preparing” the levies.

At the heart of the agreement is Pfizer’s $70 billion commitment to U.S.-based manufacturing and an exemption from tariffs for three years. While the reaction was mostly positive from Wall Street, other observers noted that the benefits for patients are unclear at best.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla directly credited the threat of tariffs with leading to the deal, in which the company will offer drugs on a soon-to-be-launched website called TrumpRx.

Though details remain scant, the pending order is expected to be the latest effort in President Donald Trump’s campaign to bring drug prices down to the same level as economically similar countries.

In an interview with German-language outlet Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan said the company is exploring ways to remove or minimize the drug price gap between the U.S. and its other markets in similarly developed countries.

Merck, Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca have similarly suspended or outright canceled investments in the U.K. in the past week after a sizeable increase in a mandatory levy in the region.

As the political winds shift on a whim and public distrust of the pharma industry reaches fever pitch over drug pricing, executives are being asked to navigate an impassible path.

There’s still much more to come from the White House on tariffs, but the European Union has now reached a trade agreement with the U.S.