Johnson & Johnson follows Eli Lilly in spending billions on U.S. manufacturing after President Donald Trump threatened major tariffs on pharmaceutical products. Pfizer has also promised a similar commitment.
President Donald Trump’s demand for U.S. manufacturing has brought around another Big Pharma. Johnson & Johnson followed in the footsteps of Eli Lilly Friday, announcing a massive $55 billion manufacturing and R&D investment over the next four years.
The healthcare giant will boost its U.S. investment by 25% compared to the previous four years, according to a its news release. The announcement coincides with the groundbreaking of a manufacturing site in North Carolina, CEO Joaquin Duato said in a statement.
The investment will also include three new manufacturing facilities and the expansion of existing sites for J&J’s medicines and medtech business. No additional information was provided on the sites. J&J vowed to boost R&D infrastructure to find treatments for indications in oncology, neuroscience, immunology, cardiovascular disease, along with robotic surgery.
All in all, J&J’s economic impact in the U.S. will now be an estimated $100 billion.
At the new Wilson, N.C., site, J&J will be building a 500,000-square-foot biologics manufacturing facility, which will provide additional capacity for treatments to tackle cancer and immune-mediated and neurological diseases, according to the release. The construction will support about 5,000 jobs, while 500 positions will be created to run the facility itself.
The massive investment follows a similar, albeit smaller, commitment from Lilly in the wake of political pressures from Trump to bring more manufacturing to the U.S. In February, Lilly announced an investment of $27 billion in U.S. manufacturing capacity at an event in Washington, D.C. that was attended by U.S. officials. The announcement was made days after Trump threatened a 25% tariff on pharmaceutical products if companies did not bring more manufacturing stateside.
Trump reportedly issued the threat in a closed-door meeting with some of the biggest CEOs in the pharmaceuticals business, including Merck’s Robert Davis, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla and Lilly’s David Ricks.
Pfizer followed suit in early March, promising to shift manufacturing operations to the U.S. if Trump follows through on his tariff threat. Bourla claimed that Pfizer has the largest manufacturing network of any company, with 13 production plants already in the U.S.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca is looking East. The U.K. pharma announced a $2.5 billion, five-year investment into a new R&D hub in Beijing on Friday. This will mark AstraZeneca’s second strategic R&D center in China and its sixth worldwide, according to a Friday news release. The pharma has also signed agreements with biotechs Harbour BioMed, Syneron Bio and BioKangtai. Full financial details have not been disclosed, but the Harbour agreement will involve multi-specific antibodies while the Syneron collaborations will be in macro-cyclic peptides. The new center will tap into Beijing’s “cutting-edge biology and AI science,” according to CEO Pascal Soriot.
