The availability of around 85 per cent of NHS medicines could be at risk unless the UK government strengthens its supply chains to prepare for worsening geopolitical tensions, ministers have been warned.
Manufacturers in Britain have urged the government to treat it as a defence issue, with the supply of drugs such as antibiotics under threat if global tensions continue to rise as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to impose hefty tariffs across the world.
If pharmaceutical and medical suppliers are hit by the US-led tariff war, the NHS could have to pay more for medicines, another expert has said.
The warnings come after health secretary Wes Streeting said UK medicines supplies could be impacted by the tariffs imposed on trade by President Trump.
Mr Streeting said during an interview on Sky News that there are a “number of factors at play” when it comes to the UK’s supply of medicines, including manufacturing and distribution challenges, and he warned that tariffs pose “another layer of challenge”.
The health secretary was responding after the US president said he was not looking to pause the sweeping tariffs that have plunged global markets into turmoil. Although the US tariffs have so far exempted the pharmaceutical industry, some medical devices and equipment are affected, so UK manufacturers would still be hit by 10 and 20 per cent tariffs when exporting to the US.
Some companies which rely heavily on exports to the US are likely to consider moving their manufacturing from the UK to America, according to RBC analysts quoted in Endpoints News, which could push prices higher for Britons. The UK also imports £4.5bn in medical products from the US, where companies may raise prices due to tariffs on imported raw materials.
Mark Samuels, chief executive of the British Generic Manufacturers Association (BGMA), which represents medicines manufacturers in Britain, told The Independent: “There have been around 100 products (medicines) in shortage for the last year or so, and that’s in peacetime, so it seems to me it would make complete sense to treat the nation’s medicines supply like defence... [medicines supplies] absolutely should be on the same level as defence.”
The BGMA chief said the government should prepare for the volatile geopolitical situation to put additional strain on the UK supply chain. “I would expect the government to make the resilience of the supply chain for generic and other everyday medicines their top priority. It’s not been a priority at all in previous governments. During the pandemic, the government woke up to the fact that most prescription medicines are generic medicine – 85 per cent of NHS prescriptions are generic.
“It makes complete sense [to treat it like defence], particularly as we have various state actors engaged in grey zone hostile activity. A good example of that is antibiotics. We don’t make any antibiotics in the UK: that’s not a resilient situation to be in.”
Other “life critical” medicines, such as drugs used by heart patients to prevent sudden death syndrome, would also be vulnerable, he said.
Generic-based medicines are copies of brand-name drugs which contain the same active ingredients.
Last year the BGMA warned medicine shortages were around double the number recorded in 2023, with vital antibiotics, hormone replacement therapy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs hit by severe shortages.
Mr Samuels also said ministers must focus on renegotiating post-Brexit medicines trade agreements with the EU, which have negatively impacted the UK’s manufacturing industry. Current rules do not allow UK manufacturers to sell medicines they made to the bloc but do allow EU manufacturers to sell to the UK.
Stockpiling would be a short-term solution, he said, but this would come with some additional costs.
Although no tariffs have yet been imposed on pharmaceutical products, Dr Sanchayan Banerjee, a behavioural economist at the London School of Economics, highlighted that the medical and pharmaceutical sector was the second-largest UK exporter to the US in 2024. Trade amounted to £6.6bn, with the US making up about 40-50 per cent of total sales for British companies such as AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline.
He told The Independent: “A reduced supply could mean higher-end prices for medications for consumers which will mostly fall onto the NHS, which already heavily subsidises drugs.
“To alleviate pressure, encouraging those who can afford it to go private; encouraging on-shoring drug manufacture; and modest increases in prescription charges will help smooth out these costs.”
The government was approached for comment.
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