Biotech stocks toppled Thursday after President Donald Trump announced broad global tariffs.
A fact sheet from the White House says pharmaceutical products will be exempt from the higher country-specific “reciprocal tariffs,” though the 10% broad tariff still applies. But Leerink Partners analyst David Risinger says Trump could announce pharmaceutical tariffs “in the next month or so.”
That’s why RBC Capital markets analyst Brian Abrahams says it’s premature to celebrate. And, indeed, biotech stock investors didn’t. The SPDR S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) toppled 3% to 78.14. Investor’s Business Daily’s Medical-Biomed/Biotech industry group lost 2.9%.
“Pharmaceutical tariffs could still be implemented in the future — and indeed, we thought that many had expected an announcement specific to pharmaceutical tariffs to be announced later, and/or to be phased in rather than immediate,” Abrahams said in a client note. “The order calls out the need to maintain ‘robust and resilient domestic manufacturing’ in sectors like pharmaceuticals, suggesting this remains on the administration’s radar for the future.”
