Major pharmaceutical companies are committing billions to US manufacturing in an effort to avoid steep tariffs threatened by President Donald Trump.
Pharma’s largest companies have announced a combined $158 billion in U.S. manufacturing spending in response to President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs for those that don’t reshore operations. That money will be scattered across the U.S., from the usual California biotech hub to the burgeoning Research Triangle in North Carolina.
Not all of the locations that will see investment have been named. But we know that Texas, Pennsylvania and Indiana are also on the list.
Eli Lilly announced $27 billion for U.S. manufacturing in February to be spread across four facilities. This adds up to $50 billion in total spending in the country since 2020.
Three of the facilities will manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for small molecule drugs. The fourth facility will be earmarked for future injectable therapies. Lilly expects the facilities to create about 3,000 new jobs.
Lilly has seemingly not yet decided where the new facilities will be located. In a release announcing the investment, the company noted it is in negotiations with several states and invited additional interest by March 12. Lilly declined to provide details on how much interest they drew, only saying via a spokesperson that they “received numerous submissions.” The locations will be revealed later this year.
Johnson & Johnson followed suit in early March with a $55 billion pledge to boost manufacturing and R&D in the U.S. over four years. This represents a 25% increase over the previous four years, the company said. At the same time, CEO Joaquin Duato announced the groundbreaking of a facility in North Carolina that will ultimately support 500 positions.
Also in March, Swiss pharma Novartis added $23 billion over five years to the cacophony of investment. The funds would go to build a biomedical research innovation hub in San Diego and two radioligand manufacturing plants in Florida and Texas. Another four facilities will be built, with three focusing on manufacturing biologics, drug products, device assembly and packaging. Novartis has not announced where these facilities will be, but the investment will be spread across 10 facilities, seven of them new.
The company said the initiative will ensure that all key Novartis medicines for U.S. patients will be made in the U.S.
Coming in behind J&J’s huge $55 billion outlay, Roche will spend $50 billion on expanding its U.S. footprint. The cash will support a new gene therapy facility in Pennsylvania, an R&D center in Massachusetts and a manufacturing site in Indiana, among other advancements and renovations to existing facilities.
Regeneron has also tossed some change at the problem, with a much smaller $3 billion commitment via a deal with Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, which has a brand-new facility in North Carolina.
