Tariffs

From tariffs to drug pricing to the FDA, biopharma CEOs find themselves pulled into policy discussions on this year’s second quarter earnings calls.

Albert Bourla confirmed that he called President Donald Trump after receiving a letter asking Pfizer and a clutch of other pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices or face consequences.

For now, Sanofi’s U.S. inventory is insulating the company from a potential 15% tariff on drugs shipped from the EU.

Pascal Soriot’s comments came during AstraZeneca’s Q2 earnings call in regard to President Donald Trump’s newly announced European pharma tariffs. The company also announced estimate-beating earnings, with its cancer portfolio driving earnings despite clinical roadblocks.

While some analysts forecast the tariffs could mean billions in additional industry expenditure, others expect the overall impact to be “manageable.”

The money will focus on a manufacturing plant in Virginia that will make the company’s weight management and metabolic drugs like the hypertension drug baxdrostat and oral GLP-1 therapies.

The biotech is planning to expand antisense oligonucleotide capabilities and infrastructure on campuses that already produce drugs such as the ALS therapy Qalsody.

In its Q2 earnings call Thursday, Novartis said it is moving quickly to reshore its drug manufacturing operations, but CEO Vas Narasimhan told reporters that for most medicines, it typically takes three to four years to completely relocate production.

Leerink Partners called the announcement a ‘positive’ given the delayed timeframe and the uncertainty that the administration will implement tariffs at all.

Jefferies analysts called the proxy filing, which is a standard disclosure after a merger agreement, “much more intriguing than normal” given the regulatory turmoil it revealed.