Roche is planning to expand its drug production in the US and has announced a pledge to spend $50 billion in the next five years on new as well as existing manufacturing facilities across several states.
This investment promise is coming at a time when the Trump administration’s tariff policies have thrown the global trade into complete disarray and also pressured the drugmakers. Roche, in its response, said that it intends to construct new factories as far as obesity, medications, gene therapy, consistent glucose tracking devices, and new research and development centers are concerned. In addition to this, Roche will expand numerous existing plants also.
As per Roche, these investments will help the company to export more drugs due to more drug production in the US than it tends to import, which, by the way, is already happening in the case of diagnostics. They will also be opening the gates for 12,000 new jobs.
It is well to be noted that Roche happens to be the fifth big drugmaker in 2025 to promise a significant boost in its US manufacturing capacity. They follow the likes of Eli Lilly, Merck & Co., Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis.
The outlay by Roche is going to create a series of new plants like the one in gene therapy at Pennsylvania and also an AI-focused research and development hub based in Massachusetts. It is also going to fund expansion as well as upgrades as far as its existing facilities are concerned, which are for making medicines and diagnostics. These plants happen to be located in the states of Indiana, Kentucky, Oregon, New Jersey, California, and Arizona.
According to its CEO, Thomas Schinecker, the announcements that have been made today pertaining to the investments highlight Roche’s long-standing commitment when it comes to research and development as well as manufacturing across the US. He added that they are indeed proud of their 110-year legacy across the United States, which has indeed been a major driver for innovation, job creation, and upliftment of intellectual property in the pharmaceutical and diagnostics divisions.
It is worth noting that pharmaceutical companies happen to be facing the possibility of new tariffs from the Trump administration, which could well be implemented in the weeks to come. There happen to be senior administration officials who think levies can as well push the drugmakers to go ahead in reshoring manufacturing of pharmaceuticals as well as ingredients.
Interestingly, Roche, as well as its peers, is trying really hard to get ahead of such threats by way of announcing fresh investments for drug production in the US. But it can be several years before many of these facilities come up and go on to have a measurable impact as far as drug imports are concerned.
It was in 2024 that Roche sold one of its biologic plants in California to a Swiss contract manufacturer named Lonza for $1.2 billion. The company recorded almost 827 million Swiss francs equivalent to $940 million of costs which happened to be related to plant closures in 2024.
In comparison to it, Roche spent almost 1.7 billion Swiss francs on plants, property, and equipment for its pharmaceutical division and 1.8 billion Swiss francs as far as diagnostic business is concerned.
