With the threat of pharmaceutical tariffs hanging over the biopharmaceutical industry, Roche is the latest addition to a growing list of major drugmakers that are bolstering their manufacturing footprints in the U.S.
The company's newly unveiled $50 billion investment spree will be poured into several initiatives over five years, including a new 900,000-square-foot manufacturing facility focused on Roche’s budding portfolio of next-gen weight loss meds at a soon-to-be-announced location, according to an April 22 press release.
In addition, the company is planning to build a new plant in Indiana for continuous glucose monitoring devices and a state-of-the-art gene therapy manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania, the company said.
Through all of this, the Swiss pharma will strengthen its chops across its existing U.S. footprint, which currently features 24 sites in eight states supported by a U.S. workforce of more than 25,000 employees. The new projects will add about 1,000 jobs at Roche, the company said.
Roche also plans a “significant expansion” and upgrading of its pharmaceutical and diagnostics R&D centers in Arizona, Indiana and California, plus "upgraded US manufacturing and distribution capabilities" at existing supply chain sites in Kentucky, Indiana, New Jersey, Oregon and California.
The $50 billion investment sum includes a previously disclosed new R&D center in Massachusetts, which will be a hub for cardiovascular, renal and metabolism research.
Roche's investment pledge comes as major players in the industry prepare for potential U.S. drug tariffs. President Donald Trump has teased the prospect of drug tariffs for months, but pharma imports were notably excluded from the batch of levies announced on "Liberation Day" in early April.
Despite the exemption, the pharma tariff threat persists, considering a recent comment from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and an ongoing Section 232 investigation into national security implications of the global supply chain.
It's a topic acutely felt in Europe, which could lose billions in biopharma investments unless it delivers “rapid, radical policy change,” pharma CEOs in the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) recently warned to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Potential U.S. drug tariffs provide “little incentive to invest in the EU and significant drivers to relocate to the U.S,” EEPIA noted.
As for Roche, the company made clear that its investments “underscore our long-standing commitment to research, development and manufacturing in the U.S.,” CEO Thomas Schinecker said in the company’s April 22 announcement, pointing to its “110-year legacy in the United States.”
The moves will “lay the foundation for our next era of innovation and growth, benefiting patients in the US and around the world,” according to Schinecker. Once all is said and done, Roche will end up exporting more medicines from the U.S. than it imports, the company noted in the release.
Roche’s announcement follows several major U.S. manufacturing investments, such as Novartis’ $23 billion push to build up 10 facilities, Johnson & Johnson’s $55 billion outlay and Eli Lilly’s $27 billion spending spree. Those drugmakers highlighted a focus on “supporting American jobs,” as J&J said, or the “pro-innovation policy and regulatory environment in the U.S.,” as Novartis put it. Lilly, for its part, outlined plans to create a future where “American innovation leads the world."