How are generic drugmakers reacting to Trump’s push for domestic production?

Leading generic drugmakers have mixed views on President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to impose tariffs on pharmaceutical goods in a bid to push global pharma majors to shift their manufacturing businesses to the U.S.

However, brand-name drugmakers, including Eli Lilly (LLY), Bristol Myers (BMY), and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), have already announced plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to boost their U.S. manufacturing operations as Trump’s tariff threats grew louder.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Swiss generic drugmaker Sandoz (OTCQX:SDZNY), which relies entirely on overseas manufacturing operations, said that tariffs won’t force it to build U.S. production plants.

“Is that going to happen through carrots, or is it going to happen through sticks?” CEO Richard Saynor said, adding, “Sticks are not going to incentivize me to build an antibiotics facility.”

Meanwhile, Sandoz’s (OTCQX:SDZXF) Israeli rival Teva (NYSE:TEVA), which accounts for 1 out of every 14 generic prescriptions in the U.S., is waiting to assess the tariff structure before committing to any domestic plants. “We want to understand what is the policy before we start to think of anything like that,” CEO Richard Francis said. “We already have eight manufacturing sites in the U.S., so we have a pretty big footprint,” he added.

Viatris (NASDAQ:VTRS), which depends on overseas manufacturing for about half of its U.S. revenue, is also taking a wait-and-see approach. “We don’t know where tariffs are going to land, but we’ve been involved in a lot of mitigation strategies, both short-term and long-term, thinking about what it is that we can do,” CEO Scott Smith remarked during the company’s recent earnings call.

However, New Jersey-based Amneal Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMRX) recently inked a collaboration with syringe maker Apiject to expand its U.S. manufacturing footprint, potentially becoming the only generic drugmaker to double down on domestic production during Trump’s second term.