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Trump announces tariffs on pharma firms not building in

U.S.

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Roche and Novartis have pledged major investments in U.S.

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Industry source suggests Swiss giants unlikely to be

affected

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Shares in Roche, Novartis little moved by announcement

(Recasts with input from Roche, analyst comment)

By Paul Arnold

ZURICH, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Swiss companies Roche

and Novartis on Friday flagged they did not expect to be

hit by President Donald Trump's latest pharmaceutical tariff

announcement because they are in the process of building new

U.S. sites and investing there.

Trump said on Thursday the United States will impose a

100% tariff on imports of branded or patented pharmaceutical

products from October 1, unless a given pharmaceutical company

is building a manufacturing plant in the U.S.

A Roche spokesperson pointed to an August 25 announcement

that its Genentech unit had broken ground for a facility in

Holly Springs, North Carolina, as well as its $50 billion pledge

to invest in U.S. manufacturing and research and development.

Roche and Novartis are Switzerland's two biggest

pharmaceutical firms with major U.S. production operations.

Novartis, which made a $23 billion U.S. investment pledge

earlier this year, said that Trump's 100% tariff announcement

should not have an impact on the company.

"We have ongoing construction and expect to announce

five new sites to be under construction before end of year,"

Novartis said.

Investors appeared to shrug off the news. Shares in both

Roche and Novartis traded slightly up early on Friday.

Wolf von Rotberg, an equity strategist at J. Safra Sarasin

Sustainable Asset Management, advised against significantly

reducing pharmaceutical investment after Trump's announcement.

"If exemptions apply broadly to companies with U.S.

production sites, all major U.S. pharmaceutical companies and

some European ones would likely be exempt," he said.

"Recent spending commitments by large-cap pharmaceutical

companies, including major Swiss firms, may be deemed sufficient

for exemptions, potentially limiting the tariff's scope", he

added.

The Swiss government said the relevant departments are

analysing the potential impact of Trump's pharmaceutical tariff

measures but that it did not have details of them.

(Reporting by Paul Arnold and Dave Graham, editing by

Friederike Heine and Thomas Seythal)