Trump hits pharma hard: AstraZeneca no longer the UK’s largest company

12 May 2025 , 19:44

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Trump hits pharma hard: AstraZeneca no longer the UK’s largest company

U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to drastically cut medication prices for Americans has dealt a major blow to pharmaceutical manufacturers—especially Indian companies and British COVID-19 vaccine developer AstraZeneca.

According to Bloomberg, following Trump’s announcement, AstraZeneca’s stock dropped by 5.8%, reducing its market capitalization to approximately £154 billion ($203 billion). As a result, AstraZeneca lost its position as the most valuable publicly traded company in the UK, overtaken by financial giant HSBC Holdings, which is now valued at roughly the same amount.

HSBC, for its part, expects that the new U.S. drug pricing rules will have minimal impact on its business. The banking giant recently announced a stock buyback program despite ongoing geopolitical instability that continues to pressure global markets and the broader economy.

Meanwhile, shares of Indian pharmaceutical companies have dropped between 30% and 80%, according to Reuters. This sharp decline is attributed to the fact that nearly one-third of India’s pharmaceutical exports go to the United States—a market that saw a 16% growth in the last fiscal year, reaching around $9 billion.

Several major Indian pharma companies saw immediate losses following Trump’s pricing announcement:

• Sun Pharma: down 4.6%

• Biocon: down nearly 3%

• Divi’s Laboratories and Lupin: both down 2%

• Zydus Life and Cipla: down 0.7% each

• NIPHARM: down 1.6%

The policy shift is expected to continue rattling pharmaceutical markets, especially among exporters reliant on the U.S. for revenue.

James Turner