Financial Times: US patient costs will rise due to tariffs on EU medical products

Manufacturers Siemens Healthineers and Philips predict losses following the introduction of the duty of up to 250 million euros in the current financial year, and up to 400-500 million euros annually in the long term.

Price increases could be particularly significant for items such as stents and artificial joints, the costs of which will be borne by patients, hospitals, or manufacturers depending on contract terms, said Prashant Yadav, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

Experts warn that the introduction of tariffs threatens the stability of global supply chains. Even minor disruptions in logistics can quickly impact diagnostic and treatment procedures.

Some companies are already considering relocating production. For example, Swiss-based Ypsomed, which produces injection systems, may redistribute capacity between its factories in Germany and Switzerland, and plans to build new production facilities for the US market by 2028.

The White House rejected criticism from the European industry, stating that it is the EU and its member states that impose barriers to imports of pharmaceutical and medical products, which also impacts prices and availability. Meanwhile, analysts note that countries with a high concentration of medical technology production for the US will be hit hardest by the tariffs.

The industry is the largest employer in Europe, employing 38,000 companies. In Ireland, for example, the sector provides approximately 45,000 jobs, and up to 42% of exports go to the US market.

In July 2025, Donald Trump once again raised the possibility of imposing tariffs of up to 200% on foreign-made pharmaceuticals. Trump stated that he could give pharmaceutical manufacturers about a year or more to relocate their operations to the United States.

Meanwhile, the global pharmaceutical industry is experiencing a wave of large-scale layoffs in 2025: since January, at least 178 international companies have announced layoffs of thousands of workers. Management explains these measures by the need to reduce costs, restructure business models, and reallocate resources to priority research areas. For more information on layoffs in the industry, see Vademecum's review .