Roche promises $50B in U.S. manufacturing and R&D investments, with Pharmaceuticals’ tariff looms
Roche promised $50 billion to invest in U.S. manufacturing and research infrastructure in the U.S. over the next five years, making the pharmaceutical giant the latest company as drug manufacturers prepare for expected tariffs on the Trump administration, rolling out capital expenditures.
The Trump administration is still looking at details on how tariffs can be applied to drugs. But pharmaceutical companies can avoid them by making more drugs in the United States
Basel, headquartered in Switzerland, currently maintains 13 manufacturing industries and 15 R&D sites in the United States in its pharmaceutical and diagnostics sector. These sites employ more than 25,000. Roche U.S. presence includes a subsidiary based in South San Francisco, Genentech and its Roche Diagnostics division, which maintains the North American headquarters in Indianapolis.
Roche announced a new capital investment plan on Tuesday will expand certain existing Roche sites and add some new sites. The planned new sites include a gene therapy manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania, a glucose monitor manufacturing location in Indiana, and a new R&D center in Massachusetts. The research website will work on artificial intelligence and will also serve as a hub for cardiovascular, kidney and metabolic research and development. Last month, Roche will build the 30,000-square-foot location at the Harvard Enterprise Research Park in Boston.
A new 900,000 square foot weight loss drug manufacturing center is also planned, but the location is still not disclosed. Roche joins a growing company developing obesity drugs and received a $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics in 2023, which brings clinical-stage injection-type and oral metabolic drugs. Last month, Roche reached a $1.65 billion deal to develop a partner in New Zealand's pharmaceutical obesity drug that pursues a different goal than the currently available weight management drugs. The terms of the transaction put Roche in charge of manufacturing and supplying the peptide Petrelintide of the design.
Roche said that once new manufacturing capacity expands, the company will export more drugs from the United States rather than importing them into the country. However, this export surplus has been for several years, given the timeline for building a pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure. Roach said his diagnostics department already has a U.S. export surplus.
“Roche is a Swiss company with a strong legacy in over 130 countries around the world,” said Thomas Schinecker, CEO of Roche Group, in a prepared statement. “The investment announced today highlights our long-term commitment to U.S. research, development and manufacturing,” said Roche Group CEO Thomas Schinecker in a prepared statement.
Roche's manufacturing plan follows capital expenditure announcements from several of its large pharmaceutical companies. In February, Eli Lilly announced that ongoing capital investment in Indiana and elsewhere in the United States would exceed $50 billion.
In early March, Merck announced the opening of a $1 billion vaccine manufacturing site in Durham, North Carolina. Soon after, Johnson and Johnson & Johnson said it will invest more than $55 billion in manufacturing and R&D infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years. Earlier this month, Novartis announced plans to spend $23 billion over the next five years to expand its U.S.-based manufacturing and R&D infrastructure.
Photo: Giuseppe Aresu/Bloomberg, by Getty Images
