Sweeping “radical” changes in both the U.S. FDA and China’s drug development landscape are keeping the global life science industry on its toes in assessing what’s temporary and what’s not, speakers said at the Bioplus Interphex (BIX) Korea 2025 conference in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct. 15.

Caught between the rock and the hard place of most-favored nation (MFN) pricing and the threat of a hefty biopharma sector tariff, drug companies marketing in the U.S. are exploring their options. Several large firms already have committed millions and billions of dollars in investment in new or expanded U.S.-based manufacturing facilities to avoid tariffs on finished drugs.

Sweeping “radical” changes in both the U.S. FDA and China’s drug development landscape are keeping the global life science industry on its toes in assessing what’s temporary and what’s not, speakers said at the Bioplus Interphex (BIX) Korea 2025 conference in Seoul, South Korea, on Oct. 15.

While the pace of executive orders (EOs) coming out of the White House has slowed, the Trump administration is still churning them out. As of the end of the third quarter, President Donald Trump had issued 209 EOs. Of those, BioWorld tracked 37 that directly impact drug and device R&D, regulatory burdens, pricing and market competition.

The budget impasse between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill has implications for a wide range of federal government operations, including at the U.S. FDA, which is absorbing another round of layoffs and cannot accept new premarket filings that require user fee submissions.

Although U.S. President Donald Trump’s Oct. 1 start date for a hefty biopharma sector tariff has come and gone, the threat remains, serving as both a stick and a carrot to get drug companies to come to the table with their best deals.

Even though the U.S. CDC is operating on a skeleton crew due to the partial government shutdown, it is updating its immunization schedules to adopt the COVID-19 and chickenpox vaccine recommendations the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made at its September meeting.

Even though the U.S. CDC is operating on a skeleton crew due to the partial government shutdown, it is updating its immunization schedules to adopt the COVID-19 and chickenpox vaccine recommendations the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) made at its September meeting.

While the discussions and votes at the past two meetings of the U.S. CDC Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) have generated a lot of controversy and resulted in some states and medical groups issuing their own vaccine schedules, the truth is that the newly reconstituted committee’s recommendations to date are still in line with, or more generous in some instances than, global norms.

The threat of tariffs on imports of branded drugs is about to be realized after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 100% import duty will apply beginning Oct. 1. However, the flurry of recent announcements by pharma companies of investments in U.S. manufacturing plants may have paid off, with the president saying in his announcement on Truth Social that the 100% rate will be enforced “unless a company is building their manufacturing plant in America.”