Medicines: Pharmaceutical industry awaits growth: an advanced effect in the customs dispute

While the German economy is in the crisis, the pharmaceutical industry expects significantly more sales and jobs in Germany. The industry benefits from an attractive export business, stabilization in the home market and attracts due to impending US tariffs, as a forecast of the association of researching pharmaceutical manufacturers (VFA) shows.

In particular, the important export business got going at the beginning of the year, also because of the tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump on medical devices, the VFA writes in the paper that is available to the German Press Agency. Companies are likely to have set up their inventory in the United States in order to secure themselves in the case of tariffs. Signs for this provided US trade data.

According to media reports, pharmaceutical companies have recently had as many medication as possible flying over the Atlantic in order to avoid impending tariffs. Fracht service providers such as Lufthansa Cargo and DHL reported on an increase in demand for pharmaceutical programs to the USA.

In a guest post for the “Financial Times”, the bosses of the pharmaceutical companies Novartis and Sanofi, Vas Narasimhan and Paul Hudson called that the EU Commission had to raise pharmaceutical prices to the significantly higher level in the USA in order to create incentives for innovations. She warned that Europe has to “act urgently, otherwise a decline begins and the departure of companies accelerates”.

The VFA also sees a lively demand for German medication from Europe and the rest of the world. This year he expects sales of 2.5 percent and production growth of 2.9 percent. Employment in the pharmaceutical industry is likely to increase by 1,100 to around 132,000 people. The German economy, however, will probably stagnate a total of 2025.

Possible US tariffs on medical devices are not taken into account in the forecast. If they would come, VFA chief host Claus Michelsen “expects” at short notice significant cuts in companies and in the medium term considerable challenges for the pharmaceutical industry in Europe “. Customs could be made where, due to existing contracts, no price increases are possible, the profitability of the pharmaceutical manufacturers, the association said.

Medications have so far been excluded from Trump’s global customs package. If US tariffs come to medical devices, they would “lead to higher prices for the American population,” says the VFA. The demand for medicines from the Americans will probably not react little, because complex and patent -protected goods are not easily interchangeable.

Worries about health care

The United States is an indispensable sales market for the German pharmaceutical industry. According to the Federal Statistical Office, 2024 were worth 27 billion euros to the United States – almost a quarter of German pharmaceutical exports. Immunological products such as Antisera, vaccines and blood were particularly in demand.

At the same time, impending US tariffs are worried about health care in this country. Because Germany imported pharmaceuticals from the USA for 12.1 billion euros, almost 17 percent of industry imports, as well as a good 12 percent of the preliminary products, including sterile hoses for medicinal production. In a trade war, preliminary products could be stronger or at times completely missing, the VfA warned months ago.