By Peter Loftus

British drugmaker GSK is preparing for potential new U.S. tariffs on its medicines and can handle the challenge, the company's leader said Wednesday.

"I would say we've been preparing, we have what it will take to navigate and mitigate," GSK Chief Executive Emma Walmsley said at The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything conference in New York. "It will take some actions but I think we have that in hand and we'll just respond as the data comes through."

The Trump administration is conducting an investigation that could result in new pharmaceutical-specific tariffs, which would add to the industry's cost because a significant portion of manufacturing is outside the U.S.

GSK, which makes vaccines and medicines for cancer and respiratory diseases, generates about half of its total revenue from the U.S., and has some manufacturing capacity in the U.S., Walmsley said. But some of the manufacturing for its products sold in the U.S. is outside the country.

"Supply chains in pharmaceuticals are extremely complex because of raw materials as well as fill and finish, but I think we have what will be required to respond, and we don't have manufacturing in China," she said.

Walmsley also said she hopes new health officials in the Trump administration, some of whom have expressed skepticism about vaccines, would recognize their vaccines' value in preventing disease. "We need to be very careful not to sew dangerous seeds of doubt," she said.

This item is part of a Wall Street Journal live coverage event. The full stream can be found by searching P/WSJL (WSJ Live Coverage).

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 28, 2025 11:19 ET (15:19 GMT)

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