Chicago-based big pharma AbbVie has started construction on a $70m expansion of its bioresearch and manufacturing site.

The facility, located in Worcester, Massachusetts, previously acted as a centre of excellence for the US pharma – primarily being used to support biologics R&D in the oncology and immunology fields.

Otherwise known as the AbbVie Bioresearch Center (ABC), the facility will now gain additional biomanufacturing capacity – as well as a novel, three-story R&D laboratory and further warehouse space.

In a 30 September statement, AbbVie also noted that the expansion will “accelerate the transfer of select oncology products from Europe to the US”.

The Massachusetts extension is part of AbbVie’s broader US investment push, which will see the company pump over $10bn into its US biologics R&D and manufacturing capacity.

AbbVie’s call to initiate construction in Massachusetts closely follows US President Donald Trump’s latest ploy to onshore pharmaceutical manufacturing, which will see 100% import tariffs imposed on any company not actively building a production site in the US.

Announced on the President’s social media platform, TruthSocial, Trump stated that tariffs will be placed on “any branded or patented pharmaceutical product,” unless the company can prove it is building or “breaking ground” on a drug production site on American soil.

Following mounting pressure from the Trump administration, AbbVie is not the only big pharma company making hasty US investments, with Novartis, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Roche and Novo Nordisk all investing billions into US operations.

Pfizer is the first company to come to an agreement with the White House as part of the Most Favored Nation (MFN) programme, partially due to the company promising $70bn in investment into US manufacturing.

Though this will likely benefit the US economy, analysts at GlobalData, parent company of Pharmaceutical Technology, raised concerns about the worldwide impact of tariffs, which they believe could bolster the risk of a global recession moving forward.

Analysts note that such tariffs could also impact drug development costs, as many of the raw materials used in trials – as well as active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – come from outside of the US.

This was proven by a recent US Pharmacopoeia report, which found that more than 50% of APIs for US prescriptions come from India and the EU.