Do you ever think about where your medications come from?
Whether it's a prescription or over-the-counter, 92% of the medicines we take are generic — and 85% of those come from overseas. That's according to the API Innovation Center in Cortex, which seeks to bring drug manufacturing back home.
The conversations around manufacturing drugs in the states have become more frequent, especially in light of threats in Europe and Asia.
"There could be a geopolitical event when we're over-reliant, for example, on cardiology medications coming in from China," said Innovation Center COO Kevin Webb. "If that landscape should change — and it could change very quickly — at that point, we'll start to see that supply chain run dry."
Webb told KMOX that it's become a bipartisan issue. Some incentives are being employed, he said, and companies are considering bringing manufacturing home — and the center just received a $9 million grant to set St. Louis up as a good place for that.
Webb added that re-shoring medicine making could mean hundreds of new jobs for the region.
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