Editor’s (re)View: ‘Made in Canada’ a source of pride for Canadian companies as Trump grants 30-day tariff reprieve
Canadian life sciences and health tech companies met this week at the 2025 OBIO Investment Summit in Toronto, Ontario, just days after President Donald Trump decided to pause the imposition of a 25% tariff on imports from Canada.
The summit, billed as Canada’s premier health science investment event, is held annually but this year’s meeting took on particular importance given the trade tensions that flared this week between Washington and Ottawa.
Despite Trump’s 30-day tariff reprieve, the looming trade war was a hot topic of discussion at the event, held Feb. 5-7. For many of the companies that made presentations at the summit, the label “made in Canada” was a source of pride — particularly for those from the province of Ontario, which is home to the country’s largest life sciences sector.
One of those companies is contract manufacturer Eurofins CDMO Alphora, based in Mississauga, Ontario, which is building a new 50,000-square-foot GMP biologics manufacturing facility — with funding from the government of Canada — to manufacture monoclonal antibodies and protein therapies for clinical and commercial applications.
The company, a member of OBIO and a sponsor of the summit, gave a presentation entitled “Navigating CDMO Partnerships” in a Thursday afternoon session. Linda Zhao, a business development executive focused on small molecules at Eurofins CDMO Alphora, said that “geopolitical” considerations — among other criteria — are important when biopharma companies assess whether to partner with a contract manufacturer.
Zhao pointed to the BIOSECURE Act in the U.S. as a recent catalyst for biopharma customers to look for alternative options to Chinese CDMOs in geographies outside of China. When it comes to other geopolitical risks, she said “there are a lot of uncertainties with tariffs as well” as they can increase the price of goods, impact businesses importing goods, and disrupt global supply chains.
Asked how she sees the proposed Trump tariff potentially impacting Canada-based Eurofins CDMO Alphora, Zhao responded that the company is well-positioned with a “diversified supply chain” that includes China, Europe, India, and Korea. If the 25% tariff were to be imposed by the U.S., their business strategy is to “stay competitive” on pricing, according to Zhao.
Max London, a business development executive focused on biologics at Eurofins CDMO Alphora, noted that the majority of the company’s work is in the area of R&D. “That is not a cost that is affected by tariffs,” London said. “Even when we export a final drug to the U.S., which does sometimes happen, the tariff is only on the portion of our product as directly related to the value of the actual final drug.”
Oh, Canada
Also downplaying the potential impact was Geoff Evans, president of Eurofins CDMO Alphora, who told Pharma Manufacturing last month that he is not “overly concerned” about new tariffs on Canadian products.
“There’s always these disruptions that occur but if you look at the arc of time and relationships, I think this will sort itself out,” Evans said. “I think we’ll be fine.”
Still, Evans warned that U.S. tariffs on Canada could create “a bit of short-term uncertainty, which is never great, but there’s a natural rhythm to the North American market that is robust and has been in place for decades.”
One company that is also facing uncertainty is Santa Clara, Calif.-based Agilent Technologies, which in September 2024 completed its $925 million acquisition of Biovectra, a Canadian CDMO specializing in biologics, highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients, and other molecules for targeted therapeutics.
An Agilent spokesperson this week, in response to a query from Pharma Manufacturing, described the current U.S. tariffs situation as “fluid and uncertain.”
The uncertainty, certainty of tariffs
For companies like Agilent’s Biovectra and Eurofins CDMO Alphora, the scope and magnitude of Trump’s potential U.S. tariffs on Canadian imports remain unclear, which means they will face uncertainty in the coming months. All of this will only make forecasting more difficult, not just for these CDMOs but also the economic projections of the impacted countries. In business, uncertainty oftentimes leads to bad outcomes.
On Thursday, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said Trump’s tariff threat is already having a negative impact “affecting business and household confidence” in his country. Macklem cautioned that “the longer this uncertainty persists, the more it will weigh on economic activity.”
Of course, Canada has threatened to retaliate with 25% tariffs on U.S. imports. In such a trade war, no country wins — not even Trump and the U.S.
Joshua Meltzer, a senior fellow in the global economy and development program at the Brookings Institution, warned this week that Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico would reduce U.S. economic growth, jobs, and wages, while raising prices.
“These tariffs will also harm the Trump administration’s goal of developing more secure supply chains and competing with China,” according to Meltzer, who contends that a trade war across North America “will only serve to undercut efforts to reshore supply chains away from China.”
