The thicket of state-based privacy regulation in the U.S. grows thicker by the day, but Congress seems poised to step in with a bipartisan group that may propose legislation that preempts privacy law.

Two days after pharma companies sounded an alarm that their investments were headed out of Europe, Novartis AG has announced plans to increase investment in the U.S. by $23 billion, bringing the total it invests over the next five years to nearly $50 billion.

The Trump administration applied a 90-day hold on nation-specific tariffs, but a group of 26 House Democrats urged the administration to think carefully before acting on a threat to impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals.

“We’ve lost 1,000 person-years of expertise in a few weeks,” former U.S. FDA Commissioner David Kessler said in an April 9 House Oversight and Government Reform hearing as he discussed the impact of the termination of 3,500 FDA employees the previous week, on top of the 1,000 who were let go or offered retirement in February.

The on-again, off-again U.S. tariffs are off again, at least for now, for more than 75 countries that have reached out to the Trump administration to negotiate instead of retaliating. The 90-day pause will provide some breathing room for the med-tech industry. Pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients were among the few products exempted from the reciprocal tariffs, but that exemption for pharmaceuticals was expected to be short-lived. Meanwhile, pharma CEOs warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen April 8 that, unless the EU quickly changes its policy, pharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing is increasingly likely to be directed to the U.S.

In the wake of the pandemic, many leading med-tech companies took steps to on-shore and near-shore manufacturing, a move that could protect significant numbers of players from the worst of the effects of the tariffs announced by the Trump administration last week.

The April 8 Senate hearing on the Trump administration’s tariffs generated some heated debate, although U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer parried some of the criticism by pointing to the yawing trade deficit.

Med tech and diagnostic companies in Europe are considering strategies to navigate the U.S. market following President Trump’s introduction of reciprocal tariffs on imports. While some companies are more exposed than others, there’s no doubt that many will feel the pain.

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.

The extent of the damage that will be caused if the U.S. overseas aid program, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), is axed or has its funding cut, is laid out in an expert analysis published in The Lancet April 8, which estimates nearly 500,000 children could die from AIDS-related causes by 2030, while 1 million children will be infected with the virus.