Shares in European pharmaceutical companies have sunk to a near four-month low, after Donald Trump repeated his threats to introduce tariffs on drug imports \u201cwithin the next week or so\u201d.<\/p>\n
Europe\u2019s STOXX Healthcare index slid by 2% on Wednesday, falling to its lowest level since mid-April, shortly after the US president\u2019s initial \u201cliberation day\u201d tariff announcements<\/a>.<\/p>\n Investors have been nervous in recent weeks, as Trump has threatened to introduce sky-high levies on imported pharmaceutical products in an attempt to get companies to relocate production to the US, a pledge he reiterated during an interview on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll be putting a initially small tariff on pharmaceuticals, but in one year \u2013 one and a half years, maximum \u2013 it\u2019s going to go to 150% and then it\u2019s going to go to 250% because we want pharmaceuticals made in our country,\u201d Trump told CNBC.<\/p>\n Medicines imported from the EU will face a 15% levy<\/a> under the terms of the EU-US trade deal, a move that has been condemned by the European pharmaceutical industry as a \u201cblunt instrument\u201d that would harm patients on both sides of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n Bayer<\/a>, the German maker of products including aspirin, the indigestion relief medicine Alka Seltzer and allergy relief medicine Clarityn, was one of the top fallers in Europe on Wednesday. Bayer\u2019s shares slumped by as much as 6.5%, after the company reported a 5% drop in pre-tax profit, excluding one-off items, for the first half of the year.<\/p>\n Adding to investors\u2019 jitters is the pressure being exerted on pharmaceutical companies by the White House, which is demanding that drugmakers including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and GSK cut the price of prescription drugs for Americans<\/a> within the next 60 days.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the US Department of Health and Human Services, led by the health secretary and longtime vaccine sceptic Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, announced on Tuesday it was winding down mRNA vaccine development<\/a> under its biomedical research unit, calling into question the safety of a technology credited with helping end the Covid pandemic and saving millions of lives.<\/p>\n Kennedy said the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda), which helps companies develop medical supplies to address public health threats and provided billions of dollars for vaccine development during the pandemic, was terminating 22 federal contracts for mRNA-based vaccines.<\/p>\n The decision is not expected to affect Britain\u2019s two big pharmaceutical firms, AstraZeneca<\/a> and GSK, which do not do much mRNA work, while US rivals Pfizer and Moderna, known for their mRNA-based Covid vaccines during the pandemic, could be hit hard. GSK said it did not have any of those contracts.<\/p>\n In London, the AstraZeneca share price dipped by 0.16% on Wednesday while GSK was down by 0.75%. In New York, Pfizer was down 2.2% and Moderna was 2% lower.<\/p>\n Some pharmaceutical companies already appear to be responding to US calls to increase investment in domestic drugmaking facilities.<\/p>\n AstraZeneca, Britain\u2019s most valuable company, announced a $50bn (\u00a337bn) investment<\/a> in the country in July and said it would soon be able to produce all of its drugs for the US market in the country.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a couple of products that are not made in the US, but we are rapidly transferring the supply to the US, because we have the capacity,\u201d according to its chief executive, Pascal Soriot.<\/p>\n