When they do, one of the biggest losers would likely be generic drug manufacturers and, since they account for about 90% of all prescriptions in the United States
47% of all generics prescribed in the U.S. are made in India, which is currently facing a 26% tariff. Some, like common heart medications, cost less than a dollar a pill — a price that if tariffed might cause their manufacturers to reconsider the value proposition of making them.
When they do, one of the biggest losers would likely be generic drug manufacturers and, since they account for about 90% of all prescriptions in the United States, a huge segment of Americans who rely on them. About 47% of all generics prescribed in the U.S. are made in India, which is currently facing a 26% tariff. Some, like common heart medications, cost less than a dollar a pill — a price that if tariffed might cause their manufacturers to reconsider the value proposition of making them. “Most of them are selling with low profit margins and some are operating at a loss,” said Rajiv Leventhal, a healthcare analyst at Emarketer. “They could be forced to consider whether it’s even worth it to be in the market.” That could hurt consumers who rely on those low-cost alternatives to brand-name drugs for everything from antibiotics like penicillin to blood pressure medication.
Mark Cuban, whose Cost-Plus Drug Company manufactures and sells generic drugs, such as penicillin imported from Portugal, told Forbes that any costs elevated by tariffs will absolutely be passed through to patients. “With only a 15 [percent] markup, we can't absorb any additional costs,” he said. For some generics, costs could become excruciatingly high. ING analyst Diederik Stadig estimated that a 24-week course of generic cancer medication could be run as high as $10,000 under a 25% tariff.
Name-brand medications are likely to be hard hit as well. Weight loss medication Wegovy, cancer immunotherapy drug Keytruda and HIV drug Norvir are manufactured in European Union countries, which currently face a 20% tariff. For a patient whose insurance doesn’t cover Wegovy, that could mean an extra $100 a month if Novo Nordisk passed on the whole tariff cost.
And a recent analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested that tariffs on Canadian pharmaceuticals alone would increase annual drug costs in the U.S. by $750 million a year. Even if a drug is manufactured in the United States it could still be impacted by tariffs. Nearly 90% of American biotech companies rely on imported components for a significant portion of their FDA products, according to a survey from trade industry group BIO. Cancer drug Imbruvia, for example, imports a key ingredient from China–which also produces about 72% of the pharmaceutical ingredients imported to the U.S.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2025/04/08/trumps-tariffs-coming-to-your-medicine-cabinet-soon/
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