Novartis to spend $23B to expand in the US

00:00 Speaker A

Novartis saying on Thursday plans to spend $23 billion to build and expand 10 facilities in the US as it grapples with renewed threats of drug import duties from the Trump administration. According to the company, this commitment enables Novartis to expand on its current manufacturing, research and technology presence across the 10 country, with 10 with 10 facilities including seven brand new facilities creating nearly a thousand new jobs in Novartis and approximately 4,000 additional US jobs. Julie, over to you.

00:46 Julie

Yeah, uh, so all of this means Novartis is going to be able to produce 100% of its key medicines in the US. That is a significant increase from current levels. Why is it doing it? Tariffs in a word. This is the third largest of recent commitments from the drug makers. Johnson & Johnson made a $55 billion commitment. Eli Lilly, a $27 billion commitment. Novartis uh, coming in at number three. It is the first EU-based company, it’s Swiss as we said, that is making this kind of commitment. And the administration has not yet announced sector specific tariffs for pharmaceuticals, but President Trump has repeatedly said that they are coming even as some of the other tariff back and forth has sort of superseded or subsumed uh, the expectations for what’s going on with future sectoral tariffs. They could still be coming and the drug makers are trying to get ahead of them. So Novartis, the latest to do that. We’ll see if there are more to come.