Eli Lilly CEO and the company David Ricks speaks at the Economic Club of New York on March 12, 2024 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty images
Eli Lilly The CEO Dave Ricks said Thursday that the drug manufacturer can help “respond” to national security concerns about cheaper essential medicines such as specific pharmaceutical tariffs.
The Trump administration has opened an investigation of section 232 on how the importation of certain medications in the US. UU. Affects national security, a movement widely seen as a prelude to initiate tariffs on pharmaceutical products. It is not clear how those taxes will be and if they will go to generic or older drugs, the last of which are largely manufactured abroad in countries such as India and China.
“Recovering that capacity, so in case of emergency, we have the stock, we have the supply, that is something valid,” Ricks said in an interview with CNBC, referring to those older drugs. He spoke after Eli Lilly reported profits from the first quarter and the 2025 guide, which did not include estimated effects of possible pharmaceutical tariffs.
He said that national security concerns about these medications are “valid.”
But he added: “I think tariffs are the answer to that? I'm not so safe personally.”
“We would be happy to talk to this administration or national security people about how we could respond to such crisis,” he said. “We have capacities to carry there, and we are happy to help the country if we are in need.”
Major generic medications represent approximately 90% of prescribed medications in the US. Many are critical for hospital care, including antibiotics and vasopressors, or medications that increase blood pressure.
Ricks said those essential drugs “are not easy to do, but they are cheap, and have been expelled from our country due to the cost and other harmful policies.”
However, some health experts previously told CNBC that generic drug tariffs, which have much lower profit margins than brand medications, could force some manufacturers of generic medicines to abandon the US market completely. That could cause or exacerbate the shortage of certain generic drugs in the United States, such as sterile injectable medications commonly used in hospitals.
Rick's comments occur when drug manufacturers prepare for the planned pharmaceutical rates of President Donald Trump, whose objective is to boost national manufacturing. These tariff threats are already feeding a new wave of manufacturing investments of the United States of the pharmaceutical industry.
That includes Eli Lilly, which in February announced that it will invest at least $ 27 billion to build four new production sites in the United States.
On Thursday, Ricks said rates may not be necessary after industry movements to the manufacture of remakeing.
“I think that in reality the threat of tariffs is already bringing critical supply chains to important industries, chips and pharmacists,” Ricks said. “We also need to promulgate [tariffs?] I'm not so sure. “
He added that Eli Lilly wants to see lower permanent tax rates in the United States, particularly 15% for national production. Ricks said the lowest taxes led many drug manufacturers to manufacture in “low -tax islands such as Ireland, Singapore and in Switzerland, and that can return if there is an economic incentive.”
That echoes the feeling of the comments of the CEO of Pfizer Albert Bourla on Tuesday. Although Bourla argued that uncertainty about tariffs is deterring the company to make investments in manufacturing, research and development.
