Westport, Ireland
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In historic Celtic folklore, Tír na nÓg is the land of everlasting youth, the place time stands nonetheless and folks don’t age.
Today, in the west of Ireland, they’ve come near bottling it.
Westport, a small coastal town in picturesque County Mayo, is the unlikely nerve heart of the world’s Botox provide. A facility operated by the Chicago-based pharmaceutical firm AbbVie employs at the least 1,300 native folks and about 500 extra contractors – an financial spine to a town of barely 7,000 folks.
Therapeutic Botox – used for circumstances that embrace muscle spasticity, migraines, overactive bladders, sure eye circumstances and extreme sweating – introduced in $3.3 billion for AbbVie final 12 months, with gross sales of beauty Botox, usually used to clean facial wrinkles, producing $2.72 billion.
But final week, US President Donald Trump took a step towards his objective of bringing that multi-billion-dollar business residence, asserting 15% tariffs on all pharmaceutical exports from the European Union.
It’s a transfer that some concern could devastate cities like Westport, which has been remodeled by the plant, from its opening by Allergan in 1977 to its acquisition and enlargement in 2020 by AbbVie.
Inside the sprawling 61-acre campus – a modern industrial presence nestled under Croagh Patrick, one in every of the nation’s most storied pilgrimage websites – vials of Botox are processed and packaged in powder type, earlier than export to some 70 international locations, in line with business estimates.
The US tops the listing, accounting for 70% of complete turnover at the Westport plant, which additionally makes eyecare merchandise, in line with the firm’s 2023 filings.
Uncertainty about how the tariffs will influence the firm has created nervousness for some in Westport, a group the place the long-term advantages of the plant’s presence can’t be overstated. It’s embedded in the group, powering all the things from infrastructure to sports activities groups and native charities.
At AbbVie United Park, the residence floor for the Westport United soccer membership, the place a lot of the firm’s staff and their households collect to coach or cheer from the sidelines, locals mentioned the tariffs could have a important influence.
No worker of AbbVie would converse on the report with NCS. But daycare heart proprietor Anne-Marie, who selected to not give her surname for privateness causes, mentioned she had heard many mother and father who work at the plant – and leave their youngsters in her care – voice nervousness about what could lie forward.
“They are worried about their jobs, they just don’t know how it’s going to go. Is it going to affect them? Are they going to have a job this time next year? Is the company going to be able to keep going?” she mentioned.
“And it’ll have a knock-on effect for me, you know,” she mentioned, including: “If they don’t have a job, I won’t have a job.”
Brian Cusack, from the soccer membership’s improvement committee, was typically extra upbeat about the future however believes “a lot of change is going to happen, and maybe not change for the good.”
“Westport doesn’t know what it’s like without an American pharmaceutical treatment place. And I don’t think we’d like to find out what it looks like without it,” mentioned Cusack, whose 25-year-old daughter additionally works at the plant.
Last month, after weeks of uncertainty, the US-EU trade deal was lastly agreed upon. While some in Ireland and the wider bloc welcomed the settlement, different European leaders thought of it an train in harm limitation. The calm after its announcement was to be short-lived.
Singling out Ireland – the world’s third-largest pharma exporter and residential to pharma giants Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer – Trump mentioned final Tuesday that upcoming tariffs on imported prescribed drugs could attain 250% over the subsequent 18 months. The risk comes as the US is at present conducting a Section 232 investigation into whether or not international medication threaten nationwide safety, a course of whose final result could override the present US-EU trade deal.
“We want pharmaceuticals made in our country,” he mentioned.
But tariffs alone aren’t prone to spark a mass transfer. While the concept of bringing pharmaceutical manufacturing again to the US resonates with Trump’s base, placing it into follow is fraught with challenges.
Experts say that whereas some drug manufacturing could shift to present US amenities, full-scale reshoring is unlikely as a result of excessive prices, regulatory hurdles, provide chain challenges, and the lengthy timelines for constructing or relocating high-tech crops – delays that could outlast any political modifications.
Anne-Marie instructed that the US president’s strikes could be purely political however mentioned they’ve nonetheless managed to sow widespread concern.
Still, she pointed to the resilience of the town – and Ireland – expressing the perception that Westport’s business will be capable of outlast his administration.
“When he goes out of power, it’s just gonna all change again – like it did the last time,” she mentioned, referring to Trump’s first time period in workplace and noting that individuals’s lives can’t be dictated by what she characterised as the whims of 1 man.
It’s an angle that’s felt round the town.
As visitors buzzed by way of the space, Mayo councillor Peter Flynn instructed NCS that whereas the tariffs have created “a real headache,” folks there are “getting on with their lives.”
Flynn, who labored at Allergan for almost three a long time, mentioned that Trump’s push to shortly deliver manufacturing to the US was unrealistic.
“This kind of ‘lift and shift’ approach that Donald Trump is talking about – it’s nonsensical,” he mentioned. He argues that transferring operations is extraordinarily tough, even domestically—not to mention abroad—due to the gross logistical challenges it brings, not to mention the expert staff it requires, a lot of whom he says are actually leaving the US “at speed.”
Plus, he added, “anyone that’s considering a location to move to – be it India or some of these other locations where a lot of graduates come from – are now taking the US off their map.”
AbbVie, which declined to talk with NCS for this story, has not signaled any plans to maneuver its Botox manufacturing hub.
Addressing the tariffs in a latest public earnings name, AbbVie president Robert A. Michael mentioned that the firm was “having constructive discussions with the administration on sectoral tariffs,” and famous that it’ll “obviously continue to invest in the US.” On Tuesday, the firm introduced a $195 million funding in its Chicago manufacturing plant, in what it mentioned was a part of a broader dedication to speculate greater than $10 billion in US tasks over the subsequent decade.
Other main drugmakers have additionally introduced that they’ll be scaling up American investment in response to the new tariffs.
What these investments would possibly imply for Ireland is unclear.
But it’s presumably not nice information. Last 12 months, prescribed drugs made up €44 billion ($51.2 billion) of Ireland’s complete €72.6 billion ($84.5 billion) of exports to the US.
Ahead of the tariff deal, Ireland appeared to proactively fast-track exports: €20 billion ($23 billion) value of pharma items have been shipped to the US in the first two months of this 12 months, in line with official trade information.
And whereas a trade warfare seems to have been averted for now, American shoppers could be at the receiving finish of hovering drug prices.
ING analyst Diederik Stadig instructed NCS that a 15% tariff could improve US drug costs by 7% to 10%, including as much as $13 billion yearly to well being care prices. Consumers could shoulder the burden over time by way of larger medical insurance premiums and elevated drug costs at pharmacies.
For merchandise like beauty Botox, which isn’t coated by US medical insurance, the prices of procedures already thought of a luxurious could additionally rise, analysts say, placing a additional pressure on wallets.
That’s of concern to Westport hotelier Michael Lennon, whose US clientele are key to the tourism business.
Driving to choose up his American friends, who have been horse using at a close by seashore on Clew Bay, the place he runs an equestrian trekking outfit, Lennon mentioned he wasn’t so fearful about the Westport plant taking a hit.
“There’s innovative thinking in every one of our businesses… and I think we’ll adapt,” Lennon mentioned, as his jeep rattled alongside the Wild Atlantic Way, a scenic route alongside the nation’s rugged coast.
“My worry would be that it (the increase in tariffs) could upset the American economy, and we need all these Americans coming to Ireland.”
He then recalled a dialog he had with a Trump-supporting visitor, who instructed him: “What’s good for America is good for Ireland.”
Lennon mentioned he hopes that’s true.
“But I don’t know. And neither does she,” he mentioned.