'Safe' drugs, companies focus on duty-free list

Caution is a must, but for pharmaceutical companies there is a real possibility that the vast majority of medicines will be exempt from the dreaded duties that in the worst case scenario would affect almost 11 billion in exports from Italy to the USA. The positive surprise is contained in Annex two of the executive order published immediately after the White House announcement on duties, which lists the products - including pharmaceuticals - that "will not be subject to ad valorem duty rates under this order". It is a 37-page list with thousands of products assigned a customs code, and those of the pharmaceuticals (beginning with '30') number over 150: they range from cardiovascular therapies to vaccines to cough and cold cures to which some sixty active ingredients (code 29) are added. In short, the result could be a practically generalised exemption for the entire pharmaceutical sector, given that from the first accounts the few products affected by duties - just over a dozen - are worth about 54 million in overseas exports, which in fact exceed 10 billion in all.

In short, for our Pharma sector, one of the jewels in the Made in Italy crown, it could really be a sigh of relief. But as we said, caution is a must, both because Trump can always reserve surprises and because the annex itself explains in sibylline fashion that 'the product descriptions contained herein are provided for information purposes only and are in no way intended to delimit the scope of the action'.

The reverse or half-reverse - the impact will be better understood in the coming days - would in any case be more than justified by the considerable boomerang effect that duties would have in this sector: the risk that the Americans would find themselves with a shortage of medicines and then the fact that many American giants working abroad (and also in Italy) would be hit.

In the meantime, Farmindustria President Marcello Cattani reiterated in an interview with Radio24 yesterday that if tariffs were to be triggered, 'we must not react with counter-duties because there are several steps in the production cycle of made-in-Italy drugs that move drugs, semi-finished products, and active ingredients from one side of the Atlantic to the other in the process. We believe that in parallel we must insist on expansion into other markets, but the US remains a key country with which to dialogue and negotiate'. For Stefano Collatina, president of Egualia - the producers of generic drugs who make up the lion's share of the US market - 'duties on pharmaceuticals would harm both the US and European industries, but above all would harm patients: the exemption for these products had been agreed by the advanced WTO member economies precisely to guarantee maximum access to treatment. If the exemption were confirmed, it would be good news because it would confirm a principle and an ethical value shared for decades'.