(Reuters) -U.S. drugmaker Merck said on Tuesday it is investing $1 billion in a new Delaware plant to expand domestic production as it prepares to deal with President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The new facility will produce biologic drugs and Keytruda, becoming Merck’s first in-house U.S. site to make the blockbuster cancer treatment, the company said.
Merck said last week its biggest tariff exposure is through Keytruda and it has enough U.S. inventory for this year. It estimated $200 million in additional costs for the levies implemented to date.
The company expects labs at the new facility to be fully operational by 2028 and produce experimental drugs by 2030.
The new plant would create at least 500 full-time jobs and about 4,000 construction vacancies, the company said.
Merck opened a $1 billion facility at its North Carolina site last month to boost U.S. production.
The Trump administration has been putting pressure on U.S. drugmakers to move their medicine production to the country and announced probes into drug imports that set the stage for levies in the sector.
U.S. drugmakers, including Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson, have recently announced additional investments to boost domestic production amid the tariff threat.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza and Shreya Biswas)
