Donald Trump has announced a deal with several large pharmaceutical firms, including Switzerland’s Novartis and Genentech, a subsidiary of Roche, reported SRF. The agreement, unveiled at the White House, is intended to lower the prices of selected medicines in the United States and to allow drugmakers to sell them directly to consumers online.
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In exchange, participating companies will receive three years of duty-free treatment for imported pharmaceuticals. Executives from several firms attended the announcement, including Novartis’s chief executive, Vasant Narasimhan.
For Roche and Novartis, the deal brings an end to months of uncertainty over the future pricing and tariff regime for medicines in America. Both companies reaffirmed earlier commitments to expand manufacturing in the United States. Genentech plans to invest $50bn, while Novartis confirmed more than $23bn in previously announced spending.
Under the agreement, Genentech’s product portfolio will be exempt from tariffs, enabling it to proceed with its expansion plans. The arrangement, the companies say, reflects Washington’s attempt to lower drug prices without undermining investment or innovation in biopharmaceuticals.
Mr Trump claimed that 14 of the world’s 17 largest pharmaceutical companies have now struck similar agreements with his administration. All, he said, have pledged to reduce prices, with American consumers eventually paying rates closer to those in other rich countries, such as Britain. According to The New York Times, nine companies agreed to sell most of their drugs to Medicaid at the prices they charge in European countries and to sell drugs directly to consumers through a planned TrumpRx website—a yet to be created public entity. The impact on the health-care system, he promised, would be huge.
The announcement also clarifies a lingering ambiguity in Swiss-American trade relations. Although pharmaceuticals were excluded from a provisional agreement last November that cut tariffs on many Swiss exports from 39% to 15%, Mr Trump had repeatedly threatened to bring drugs into scope. For now, at least, the industry appears to have secured a reprieve—at the price of concessions on pricing.
More on this:
SRF article (in German)
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