United States President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on pharmaceuticals have disrupted the industry. Here’s a timeline of developments affecting this sector since he came into office in January 2025. Traditionally opaque negotiations for drug prices have left Americans paying two to three times more for patented drugs than Europeans do on average. US President Donald Trump has been pulling out all the stops and using tariffs (from which drugs have historically been exempted) as a bargaining tool to force industry leaders to lower prices and reshore production in his country. As a result, pharmaceutical companies have announced billions of dollars’ worth of investments in the US. Some manufacturers have also said they will lower prices for consumers by leaving out the middlemen. Most pharmaceutical products are still exempt from tariffs and big producers will likely be able to absorb shocks. But experts predict smaller companies will be hardest hit. In Switzerland, pharmaceutical ...
