Donald Trump must be alert to the “unintended consequences” of imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical imports into the US, one of Britain’s leading health tech experts warned today.
Professor Gino Martini, chief executive of Precision Health Technologies Accelerator, the University of Birmingham’s flagship life sciences cluster, spoke out after the White House this week announced a probe into pharma goods which could lead to the imposition of import levies.
‘Pharmaceutical supply chain is notoriously delicate and complex’
“We have to be mindful of unintended consequences as the pharmaceutical supply chain is notoriously delicate and complex,” said Prof. Martini, who was Chief Scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is a multi-site, multi-country supply chain and anything which hampers that could result in unintended consequences for patients, including the availability of medicines. We do not want patients to suffer.
“We saw during the pandemic that the pharmaceutical supply chain can be easily disrupted. We need to avoid repeats of that.”
Protectionist America
Trump promised before being elected to use tariffs as a key means of driving industry, jobs and wealth back to American shores, and on April 2, which he called “liberation day,” he imposed a raft of import levies on nations around the world.
Despite partial U-turns and postponements on some of his tariffs, The US President remains keen to keep using them to deliver on his ‘Make America Great Again’ vision.
The White House says it is using Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 as grounds for sector-specific tariffs aimed at boosting domestic production of goods, including pharmaceuticals, which are key to national security.
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