Donald Trump’s 200pc pharma tariff threat a ‘cage-rattling exercise’, says Orthocell boss Paul Anderson

The boss of WA regenerative medicine company Orthocell has labelled Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat on pharmaceuticals as a “cage-rattling exercise” to try elicit panic from the Australian Government. Paul Anderson on Wednesday said Mr Trump had a tendency to over-exaggerate tariffs in the first instance, after the US President overnight indicated a potential tax of up to 200 per cent on pharmaceuticals — one of Australia’s biggest exports to the US. However, Mr Trump said companies would be given time to relocate production to the US to avoid the tariff. Copper was also likely to be hit with a 50 per cent tariff. “We think this is a cage rattling exercise, one that probably doesn’t affect us anyway,” Mr Anderson told The West Australian. Orthocell is rolling out its nerve repair product Remplir in the US after getting the greenlight from the country’s Food and Drug Administration in early April. Its other flagship product Striate+ — used for dental bone repair — is also approved in the US. Both products are manufactured at Orthocell’s Murdoch facility. But Mr Anderson reiterated there was no need to move the company’s manufacturing base to the US, saying medical devices are not the same as pharmaceuticals. “We have no fears with regards to (the tariffs), it’s really about the high volume stuff, such as the eye drops,” he said. Orthocell investors were unfazed by the tariff news on Wednesday, with shares closing down 0.4 per cent to $1.22. Less than three months post-FDA approval, Orthocell in late June marked the first US commercial use of Remplir by a surgeon in Ohio for a foot nerve injury. According to data from the United Nations, Australia exported $US1.4 billion ($2.1b) in pharmaceutical products to the US last year. Mr Anderson warned moving production into America would cost US patients more, not less, because “everything’s more expensive in the US”, including staffing and manufacturing facility costs. “We can do it in the US but there would be a price increase, so there’s no advantage for the American community, patients nor clinicians,” he said. He added Orthocell — which has a market capitalisation of more than $290 million — made sure its products have price parity to similar medical devices in the US. “(The US) can’t look backwards to us and say we’re (price) gouging,” he said. Orthocell last week reported record revenue for the June quarter as sales for Remplir surge in Australia, ahead of an expected ramp up in US. The company said the revenue uplift reflected increasing adoption of Remplir by more than 200 surgeons across over 165 hospitals in Australia. The John Van Der Wielen-chaired company noted the result did not include contributions from Remplir sales in the US, which are expected to ramp up during the first half of the 2026 financial year.