U.S. President trump said in a social media message that the tariff will be implemented on August 1, 2025, "the date will not change, nor will it change in the future". . In addition, trump said at the cabinet meeting that he was still planning to impose tariffs on specific industries, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and metals; Tariffs of 50% will be imposed on copper and up to 200% on drugs. Subsequently, U.S. Commerce Secretary lutnick said that the copper tariff would be in place later in July or August 1. The investigation of pharmaceutical and semiconductor fields will be completed by the end of this month.
Judging from the current layout of the global pharmaceutical industry!
The current technological advantages of the United States will not be restrained by taxes. To develop, Youan has many options. The United States' R & D investment in the field of biopharmaceuticals accounts for nearly 40% of the world's total. It has innovative drug pipelines led by giants such as Pfizer and MSD. In addition to biopharmaceutical investment, all indicators are world leaders.
Among the top 10 best-selling drugs in the world in 2025, American enterprises occupied 7 seats, including GLP-1 drugs and PD-1 inhibitors. .
For example, the United States has a significant first mover advantage in synthetic biology and emerging therapies, and the United States has invested more than 2billion dollars through the National Biotechnology and biological manufacturing program, which has promoted the development of synthetic biology technology industrialization. Especially in the field of cell therapy (such as car-t) and gene editing (such as CRISPR), American enterprises occupy 70% of the clinical trial pipelines in the world, and the technology leading position will last for at least 5-10 years.
At the same time, thanks to the good primary market financing atmosphere in the United States, the annual financing amount in the field of biomedicine in the United States is more than 40billion US dollars, accounting for more than 60% of the world. Pharmaceutical innovation clusters such as Silicon Valley and Boston have attracted the world's top scientists, and Harvard and other universities have also ranked top in the world for research and development in the field of medicine for many years.
But the "deepseek" moment of Chinese biomedicine is also coming! And Trump's "big and beautiful" bill is also destroying the U.S. R & D system and weakening its R & D foundation!
However, tariffs will have a lot of impact on chemical drugs, especially basic generic drugs!
80% of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in the United States rely on imports, 60% of which are from China. Take antibiotics as an example, 90% of amoxicillin bulk drugs in the United States are supplied by China, and the cost performance problem caused by local production capacity has completely disappeared since 2004. .
The generic drug market is the most vulnerable pharmaceutical market. The size of the U.S. generic drug market exceeds 150billion dollars, 40% of which rely on Indian supply. 75% of India's API comes from China, forming a "China India America" triangular supply chain. If tariffs trigger India's counter-measures, the shortage of generic drugs in the United States may increase from the current 323 to more than 500, involving antibiotics, diabetes drugs and other basic treatment fields, which will actually make face for Trump's so-called "basic disease to make huge profits reform". Even if the price of basic diabetes drugs is the lowest in the world, it's useless to buy them!
Trump's tariff is essentially intended to return production capacity. However, many industries need a transition period of construction. For example, building a compliant API factory requires us $2billion and a 5-10-year cycle, and the production cost is 3-5 times that of China. Even if the U.S. government provides subsidies (such as the $5billion incentive in the bio manufacturing plan), it will be difficult to fill the gap in the short term. Some pharmaceutical giants, such as Pfizer's API base planned to be built in Delaware, are expected to be put into production by 2030. The production capacity can meet 5% of the demand of the United States. This case is not enough to affect the whole!
At the same time, thanks to the good primary market financing atmosphere in the United States, the annual financing amount in the field of biomedicine in the United States is more than 40billion US dollars, accounting for more than 60% of the world. Pharmaceutical innovation clusters such as Silicon Valley and Boston have attracted the world's top scientists, and Harvard and other universities have also ranked top in the world for research and development in the field of medicine for many years.
But the "deepseek" moment of Chinese biomedicine is also coming! And Trump's "big and beautiful" bill is also destroying the U.S. R & D system and weakening its R & D foundation!
From the perspective of the response of American pharmaceutical enterprises, they mainly rely on friendly shore outsourcing and technology substitution!
Offshore outsourcing is mainly distributed in Mexico, Ireland and other places. Among them, the most famous case is that MSD transferred part of the production of keytruda (pablizumab) to the factory in Ireland. Taking advantage of the local low tax rate of 12.5% and the advantages of EU market access, MSD has realized the avoidance of tariff costs!
The other is technology substitution: through continuous production technology, especially continuous flow chemistry and 3D bioprinting, American pharmaceutical manufacturers are gradually reducing their dependence on traditional APIs. Eli Lilly has switched some intermediate production to biosynthetic processes, reducing the cost by 40%. Many academicians in China are also engaged in such commercialization directions, but the market is currently concentrated in health products and cosmetics, such as ergothione, which recently burned, because the API foundation of China and the United States is completely different!
However, the United States is not stupid. On the basis of its overall tariffs, there will be many exemption lists. The United States may exclude key varieties such as anticancer drugs, drugs for rare diseases, orphan drugs from tariffs. From the tariff exemption list in April 2025, it can be seen that four categories of drugs including insulin and antimalarial drugs have been included, accounting for 15% of the import value.
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The pharmaceutical negotiation is the top priority of bilateral tariff agreements between the United States, India and the European Union. For example, if the United States requires India to open its agricultural market, the United States may reduce its generic drug tariff from 200% to 50%.
From the perspective of subsequent development, the tariff policy of the United States is planning to accelerate the "de Chinalization" of the global pharmaceutical industry chain. For example, India invested $1.5 billion to support the local API industry through the "PLI plan", with the goal of achieving 70% self-sufficiency by 2030, while Vietnam and Malaysia are actively undertaking low-end generic drug production capacity.
At the same time, the United States is also promoting the voice of new technical standards. The United States dominates the global drug quality standards through FDA certification and ICH guidelines. Chinese api enterprises need to pass the FDA on-site inspection to enter the U.S. market. This technical barrier will maintain the U.S. advantage in the high-end market for a long time.
In the key AI field, AI drug design is also reshaping the industry pattern, which will change the current huge pharmaceutical research industry in China! !
Therefore, to sum up, the advantages of the United States in the field of pharmaceutical manufacturing show a dual pattern of "building walls with innovative drugs and making up for shortcomings with generic drugs". Although tariff policy may push up drug prices and aggravate supply chain risks in the short term, its core competitiveness: R & D investment, intellectual property rights and emerging technology layout are still hard to be shaken.
In the long run, American enterprises will hedge tariff shocks through technological innovation (such as synthetic biology), supply chain nearshore (such as Mexico base) and policy tools (such as exemption list), while taking advantage of global division of labor to consolidate their high-end market position. However, the dependence on bulk drugs and the shortage of generic drugs will still be its structural weakness that is difficult to cure, and the recovery of local industry will not come so soon!