The nationwide preliminary injunction keeping the U.S. NIH from slashing its indirect cost rate to a flat 15% has become permanent. In issuing the permanent injunction and final judgment April 4 in three challenges to the rate change, Judge Angel Kelley, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, said the NIH’s Feb. 7 notice that it would begin imposing the 15% rate Feb. 10 to all existing and future grants violated the Administrative Procedure Act, as the action was arbitrary and capricious, was impermissibly retroactive and failed to follow notice-and-comment procedures.

President Donald Trump’s executive order on global tariffs have pushed downward the stocks of biopharma and med-tech companies, even though the impacts of his 10% baseline tariff – which excludes pharmaceuticals – and his reciprocal tariffs affecting about 60 countries across the globe, are still unclear. “The story for the day is there’s still a lot of uncertainties in terms of pharmaceuticals,” said Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow and director of the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank. “It’s going to pressure margins, pressure availability. This is just a complete negative for the industry. It’s self-inflicted. It’s not just unnecessary, it’s unwarranted.”

Following news of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariffs on Australian exports to the U.S., Australia’s Securities Exchange shed nearly AU$55 billion in losses Thursday morning. Even so, pharmaceuticals have escaped the tariffs for now. In China, Trump’s tariffs are not a big concern for China’s health care because drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients are exempted from the tariffs. Even if tariffs are imposed in the future, Chinese pharmaceutical companies have already significantly de-risked themselves in recent months by increasing out-licensing models with U.S. partners.

Biomedical research seems like it should be the ultimate bipartisan issue. But under the Trump administration, unless and until Congress regains its will to make use of its constitutional powers, bipartisan support for research seems to be a thing of the past. On March 3, members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine warned that the second Trump administration has been waging a “wholesale assault” on American research.

At first glance, it appears that biopharmaceuticals dodged the latest U.S. tariff bullet; med-tech, not so much. According to the executive order President Donald Trump signed in the Rose Garden late yesterday, pharmaceuticals are one of the few things exempt from the new country-by-country reciprocal tariffs that will be going into effect over the next week. However, U.S.-based manufacturers of both drugs and devices could face supply chain disruptions, further market restrictions and increased operating costs as the new tariffs take effect and other countries retaliate.

After several on-again, off-again tariff threats, U.S. President Donald Trump made it official April 2: Beginning immediately, the U.S. will levy “kind reciprocal” tariffs on countries across the world. Focusing on the numbers, Trump didn’t mention whether any goods would be exempt from the new tariffs, and the executive order he signed at the Rose Garden ceremony wasn’t available as of press time. However, in concluding his remarks, Trump said the pharmaceutical industry would “come roaring back” in the U.S., because if biopharma companies don’t, they will be facing big taxes.

U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., invited Robert Kennedy to testify April 10 before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee for the first time in his capacity as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. The HELP invitation went out April 1 amid an outcry as thousands of employees across HHS agencies were being notified of their immediate termination and many lawmakers demanded answers about the mass layoffs.

“The nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated.” That statement in an open letter “to the American people” signed by 1,800 members of the U.S. National Academies, is made concrete in a list of 709 NIH grants – and counting – that have been axed since President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20. A grant tracker, based on information published by the Department of Health and Human Sciences, and self-reported terminations from scientists, includes 88 vaccine-related projects, 45 cancer research grants and 231 awards made for HIV research.

As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services begins implementing its reorganization and reduction-in-force plan by sending out termination notices this week to 10,000 more employees across its agencies, top Democrats in Congress are demanding details about the plan.

Australia’s top universities are looking more to Asia for research collaborations following threats from the Trump administration to stop funding research at institutions that don’t comply with U.S. narratives.