"
"China, the newsletter reported Tuesday, “accounted for 95% of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91% of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70% of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40% to 45% of U.S. imports of penicillin and 40% of U.S. imports of heparin, according to Commerce Department data. In all, 80% of the US supply of antibiotics are made” in China."
There are so many websites about which I knew nothing and whose focus is unsurprising albeit unknown to me.
Links in the article include a page from Health Economics about Johnson & Johnson investing $55 billion in U.S. production plants because of the tariffs.
Another surprise was FiercePharma. Also PharmaceuticalCommerce.
Will all these companies be producing in time to replace China before tariffs or retaliatory shutoff? I am not sure. Weaning yourself off a drug can be difficult. I suspect there are less adversarial nations that can produce these in the meantime.
Speaking of which, I have been going through China tooling withdrawal for some months. In some cases, there seem to be no U.S. equivalents or at prices that are so high that I suspect they need some U.S. competition. But even in an area where I would expect Chinese dominance -- end mills -- there are some excellent other sources such as Taiwan's SpeedTiger. Depending on the size, I am buying German and U.S. made carbide end mills at prices that were already competitive before the tariff war started. MSC Direct has lots of U.S. made end mills.
Drugs are as much a strategic commodity for America as are microprocessors, rare earth elements, or petroleum and should be treated exactly as that....
ReplyDeleteWhich requires a much higher degree of attention than currently is given - to all of the critical items.
Further, not only are drugs a strategic commodity, the precursor chemicals for making drugs are equally important. Making drugs is one thing, but if we rely on foreign sources for the raw materials for drugs we're not any better off.