IRELAND’S PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR is bracing itself as Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs are unveiled later today, but the sector doesn’t expect “immediate” job losses from the looming trade war.

Instead, industry group the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) believes the real impact in the dispute between the White House and the EU will be seen “four or five years from now”.

This is due mainly to the timescale for investment in the industry’s large scale manufacturing plants.

This timescale could create “significant commercial challenges” for US companies based here, which includes major names like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and MSD.

There are around 50,000 people employed across Ireland in the pharma sector, with an estimated 30,000 working for US companies with plants here.

Trump has launched a volley of tariffs impacting nations this year, promising that his ‘Liberation Day’ will free the US from a reliance on foreign goods.

Fears were heightened in Ireland last week when Trump name-checked pharmaceutical companies in Ireland while speaking in the White House.

If such sector-specific tariffs came to pass, Ireland would be particularly exposed given how reliant the pharmaceuticals sector here is to the US export market.

If so, the IPHA – which represents the creators of prescription medicines and vaccines – does not expect “immediate” job losses but warned of some pain ahead.

“Everybody’s just waiting to see what happens,” said Eimear O’Leary, communications and advocacy director for the IPHA.

While it’s “hard to say anything for definite” on how the tariffs will play out, O’Leary warned: “Tariffs will impact, and they will certainly create significant commercial challenges for companies based here.”

Despite this, O’Leary said that the IPHA is less concerned that pharmaceutical companies are “going to pick up and leave” due to the trade war.

Part of Pfizer's Grangecastle complex in west Dublin. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

She pointed to the likes of Pfizer’s €1.2 billion Grangecastle facility in Dublin as an example of the “bricks and mortar” investment that will be hard to give up, further namechecking Sligo, Mayo, Kerry, Tipperary and Limerick as regions across the country which have significant pharma facilities.

“From a physical capacity, they’re not just going to let that investment go either. So this whole thing of tariffs being introduced tomorrow and jobs being lost, that is not immediately going to be the case,” O’Leary said.

This is because of “five decades of continuity of policy” within Ireland, forming a “stable environment” and a highly skilled workforce, O’Leary continued.

However, O’Leary said that what could “potentially happen is companies look forward to four or five years time” for where they will invest later.

That’s where the job creation might not happen.

This would be in line with projections revealed by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe earlier this month when he said that the tariffs could result in the loss of up to 80,000 jobs in Ireland.

O’Leary said these were “worse case scenario” projections and the industry is hopeful it doesn’t reach that low point.

She added that the IPHA and its European partners are urging the EU to maintain “cool heads” and not to retaliate with tariffs on medicines and pharma in two weeks’ time.

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Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Dáil yesterday that the EU is waiting on today’s announcements to make a “fresh assessment” on how to respond, with the Fianna Fáil leader and Tánaiste Simon Harris holding discussions with senior European Commission figures this week to put forward Ireland’s stance.

Harris has been speaking with over a dozen countries with strong pharmaceutical industries so as to exchange views on how best to respond.

Finished or unfinished products?

Ireland’s pharma industry is also waiting to find out whether the US tariffs will affect finished or unfinished products, or both.

“More often than not it is not the finished product that we are exporting,” O’Leary explained.

“When you see figures like €44.4 billion worth of exports going to the US, that isn’t always of the finished medicine. It could be unfinished products – some of the active ingredients that make up the medicines that have been finished in America.”

The IPHA also said that it doesn’t believe US companies would be able to pass on the increased price to US customers.

Instead, US companies will be forced to absorb the costs for tariffs on medicines in the short-term instead.

While there has been a hope from some in the industry that it may pressure the Trump administration to ease its tariffs over months to come – given it could hurt US voters’ pockets – it may take some time for those agreements to unwind.

O’Leary said this was because current contracts with insurers and other US bodies are “hard to unpick”, but this “may differ from company to company” as times goes on.

With reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill