Sandoz CEO warns of Trump's generic drug tariff threat

American patients would ultimately bear the cost of President Donald Trump 's threatened tariffs on generic drugs, the CEO of Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz told CNBC, warning that manufacturers could be forced to raise prices or stop supplying some medicines.

"Patients pay the tariff," Sandoz CEO Richard Saynor said in an interview with CNBC during its Capital Markets Day.

"Any business is not going to systematically continue to supply a product at a material loss," he said on Tuesday. "So you either then have a choice of putting the price [up] or not supplying the product."

Trump said in July that imported generic medicines could face tariffs of 100% from 2028, rising to as much as 200% a year later, as his administration seeks to encourage drugmakers to shift pharmaceutical manufacturing to the United States.