Trade & Channel Strategies 2025: Why Product-Level Strategy Matters More Than Ever

In his presentation, “Mastering Global Trade, Tariffs, and More in a Changing World—Lessons for Pharmaceutical Supply Chains,” Thani Jambulingam, PhD, professor of food, pharma, and healthcare business at Saint Joseph’s University’s Erivan K. Haub School of Business, focused on separating perception from reality when it comes to the impact of tariffs on the pharmaceutical industry. While trade policy and tariffs have dominated headlines, he emphasized that a one-size-fits-all view of pharma supply chains can lead to flawed decision-making.

The central premise of his discussion was the need for product-level analysis. Pharmaceuticals encompass a wide range of product types—including generics, biosimilars, branded drugs, and advanced therapies such as cell and gene treatments—each with distinct supply-chain structures, regulatory considerations, and cost sensitivities. As a result, the effect of tariffs varies significantly depending on the product category, making holistic assessments both misleading and ineffective.

He noted that despite widespread discussion about escalating tariffs, the actual impact to date has been limited. In many cases, tariffs remain close to zero, creating a disconnect between public discourse and on-the-ground realities. The primary area of tangible change has been at the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) level, particularly for materials sourced from China, where tariffs have been proposed or implemented in the range of 7.5% to 25%. However, on the finished-goods side, Jambulingam pointed out that little has materially changed.

This imbalance has generated confusion across the industry, with companies struggling to determine how urgently they need to respond. Jambulingam’s goal was to clarify the current state of affairs, acknowledging the significant amount of “noise” surrounding trade policy while emphasizing that dramatic supply-chain shifts have largely not yet materialized.

Ultimately, his message was one of strategic focus and measured response: pharmaceutical manufacturers should resist reacting broadly to tariff headlines and instead evaluate risk, sourcing decisions, and mitigation strategies at the individual product level—where the real impact, if and when it comes, will be felt most acutely.

He also commented on how these pharma supply chain lessons can be applied in the future; why he believes wholesalers will remain indispensable despite pharma’s push into direct-to-patient sales; and much more.

A transcript of his conversation with PC can be found below.

PC: You recently presented on “Mastering Global Trade, Tariffs, and More in a Changing World—Lessons for Pharmaceutical Supply Chains.” Could you provide the premise of your discussion?

Jambulingam: I think the premise is, given the tariff, how is that impacting the industry? And as much as we have been hearing about tariffs when it comes to what products and what product lines are going to be affected, thinking holistically is not the best approach, because we have so many different kinds of products, and so you need to look at that product-level decision- making process, as opposed to looking at everything holistically. A pharmaceutical is not just a pharmaceutical, it is generics, it is biosimilars, it is branded pharmaceuticals.

It is cell and gene therapies, and every one of these categories are quite different, and you need to look at tariff and its impact at the product-type level, and that's the premise. And then, given so much being discussed—and every other day we've been hearing about new tariffs coming up and all that stuff—where are we?

In reality, nothing has happened much. Much of the tariff is still close to zero. There's a lot of discussion about how much it should be. One thing is that there are products that are coming out of China, where the tariff, especially at the API level, is being determined at 7.5% to 25%, but on the finished goods side of things, nothing has happened. It is kind of state of affairs and communicating, where are we? With so much noise, people are confused where things are, and this whole approach is to kind of bring that discussion to the forefront.