Big Pharma’s M&A plans will likely take a hit if the U.S. government under the Trump administration lives up to its threats of imposing tariffs on the industry, Roche\u2019s CEO has warned.<\/p>\n
In a first-quarter earnings call with journalists Thursday morning, Thomas Schinecker said that, for now, the Swiss pharma\u2019s mantra for finding new acquisitions continues to be: \u201cDoes the deal make financial sense?\u201d<\/p>\n
But Schinecker added that if pharmaceutical tariffs do come into force, the industry will find it \u201cmore difficult to make financial sense of any M&A deals.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy assumption would be that you will see an industry worldwide situation where people probably reduce the effort at this stage, and we’ll see how things develop,\u201d the CEO continued. \u201cYou know, things can change very quickly in this environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against a backdrop of continued threats by the Trump administration\u00a0to extend tariffs<\/a>\u00a0to include pharmaceutical imports into the U.S., Roche announced earlier this week that it will be investing $50 billion<\/a> in the country over the next five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n These ambitions include the \u201csignificant expansion and upgrading\u201d of three existing pharmaceuticals and diagnostics R&D centers as well as previously disclosed plans to consolidate the pharma\u2019s cardiovascular, renal and metabolism R&D work at a new center in Harvard\u2019s Enterprise Research Campus.<\/p>\n One impact that the administration is already having on the drug development landscape is widespread cuts<\/a> to the FDA\u2019s workforce. But Roche Pharma\u2019s CEO Teresa Graham told journalists on the same April 24 call that this has not yet impacted the company\u2019s interactions with the agency.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, we’re watching very closely the evolutions within [the Department of Health and Human Services] and the FDA,\u201d Graham said. \u201cAt this time, we are not seeing any slowdown, either in development or approval processes, and things seem to be fairly business as usual for the pharma side.\u201d<\/p>\n