A Manufacturing-Commons for America’s Medicines
When the next health emergency hits, America must ask: Will we be able to make our own medicines? The pandemic exposed a hollow supply chain, decades of offshore production, and rising drug prices. Now we have an opportunity to rebuild domestic capacity, strengthen our manufacturing base, and deliver affordable medicines.
A reasonable approach would be to propose a National Centers of Excellence for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, which aims to do just that. These regional, shared-use hubs would provide GMP-certified suites and pilot lines, accessible not just to Big Pharma, but to small and mid–sized biotech firms. They would provide infrastructure, workforce training, technology transfer, and surge capacity in emergencies.
These centers align with President Trump’s stated policy. As his May 5, 2025, Executive Order put it: “The United States must restore capacity for domestic production of critical pharmaceutical products … building new manufacturing capacity for pharmaceuticals and critical inputs that may take as long as 5 to 10 years is unacceptable from a national-security standpoint.”
Likewise, the administration declared that “It is in the best interest of the Nation to eliminate regulatory barriers to the domestic production of the medicines Americans need.”
The concept of shared manufacturing isn’t abstract: globally, manufacturing hubs such as Ireland’s National Institute for Bioprocessing Research & Training (NIBRT) and India’s Genome Valley demonstrate how shared infrastructure, training, and scale-up reduce cost, spur innovation, and accelerate access. The U.S. should adopt the same model for pharmaceuticals.
These Centers would yield multiple benefits:
Cost reduction and access: Small biotechs would avoid building costly standalone plants and instead lease capacity.
Workforce development: With universities and trade schools embedded, new jobs and high-skilled training would expand locally.
National security: Domestic capacity safeguards against supply-chain shocks, pandemics, or adversarial disruption.
Economic revitalization: Manufacturing and infrastructure investments keep jobs and dollars in communities, not overseas.
Similarly, President Trump’s announcements around tariffs and trade reflect this priority. He has threatened pharmaceutical import tariffs of up to 150-250 % in some scenarios to incentivize on-shore production: “We’re going to give people a year or year and a half … and after that they’re going to be tariffed at a very high rate, like 200 %.” That steel-and-pharma-manufacturing-first approach echoes the vision of a strong domestic industrial base.
Critics will argue about the cost of the government picking winners. But this policy is designed as public-private, competitive, and targeted. Federal seed funding, state match, industry anchor partners, and user fees will ensure sustainability. The return? Lower drug prices, affordable access, a thriving biotech ecosystem, and secure supply chains.
Every American deserves access to safe, affordable medicines made on American soil. National Centers of Excellence for Pharmaceutical Manufacturing offer a pragmatic, bipartisan path to achieve that. With alignment of policy, industry, and national purpose, we can end reliance on foreign drug factories and renew America’s manufacturing leadership.
Because the next crisis won’t wait — and neither should we.
Healthcare Dive, “The Trump administration… wants to on-shore drug manufacturing” (2025)
MMM-Online, “Pharma tariffs playbook: How Trump’s tariffs could impact the industry”