Trump signs executive order to encourage US drug manufacturing
Source: Reuters
May 5, 2025 5:46 PM EDT Updated 12 hours ago
May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday that aims to reduce the time it takes to approve pharmaceutical plants in the country, as part of new regulations to encourage domestic manufacturing. The order directs the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to streamline reviews and work with domestic manufacturers to provide early support before facilities come online.
It also directs the health regulator to improve enforcement of active-ingredient source reporting by foreign producers and "consider publicly displaying a list of facilities that do not comply".
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said during the signing of the executive order that the FDA plans to start doing surprise inspections of overseas plants, a move he said would bring the oversight more in line with the United States. The order also directs the Environmental Protection Agency to speed up the construction of facilities.
The actions are the latest by Trump to shift manufacturing of drugs to the United States. In recent months, he has repeatedly threatened tariffs on the pharmaceutical imports, which have long been spared from trade wars due to potential harms. Analysts and companies have estimated that a new manufacturing plant could take at least five years to build.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-sign-order-encourage-domestic-drug-manufacturing-wapo-reports-2025-05-05/
Much of what is being imported isn't "finished product" but APIs (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients). Since the GOP pushed for and allowed industry consolidation, during the "grow your business" / "buy or be bought" era, this triggered a rush for big pharma to merge with or be bought by other big pharma, and that often lead to a closure of the pre-merge/bought manufacturer's plant as "redundant".
The GOP creates "a mess", then they end up fumbling around trying to deal with their "mess", then they whine about the "mess" they created, but they will refuse to take full responsibility for that "mess". So now they are stuck trying to put bandaids on their "mess" and will waste time "reinventing the wheel" that they destroyed.
And then this -
NEWSFLASH: "Foreigns" (as they were nicknamed) were ALWAYS a standard part of the agency's (and specifically for pharmaceuticals, mainly CDER's - Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) workplan. But they laid off the trip-planners (needed to get all the required visas, make lodging/transportation reservations in the countries where the inspections will happen AND coordinate that for ALL of the employees going on that trip - and usually it's a team).
So I don't know why they think this is "new" and how they intend to do this with employees laid off and I expect the "replacement contractors" not even in a pipeline.
REFERENCE - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143439122
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