Pharmaceuticals and medical devices are the island’s leading exports, and Puerto Rico has become one of the world’s biggest centers for pharmaceutical manufacturing. Its factories make 13 of the world’s top-selling brand-name drugs, from Humira, the rheumatoid arthritis treatment, to Xarelto, a blood thinner used to prevent stroke, according to a report released last year.
.. drug companies and device makers are confronting a range of obstacles on the island: locating enough diesel fuel for generators to run their factories; helping their employees get to work from areas where roads are damaged and blocked
.. Thirteen of the drugs, Dr. Gottlieb said, are “sole-source,” meaning the product is only made by one company. Those include H.I.V. medications injectable drugs and sophisticated medical devices, although he did not name the products. The biggest problem, he said, was not damage to the factories, but the instability of the electric supply.
.. Ms. Fox said companies typically do not disclose where they manufacture their drugs because it is considered a trade secret. Several companies declined to list which products they made in Puerto Rico.
.. Pharmaceutical and medical manufacturing accounted for nearly three-quarters of Puerto Rico’s exports in 2016, of $14.5 billion
Trump doesn’t get it on Puerto Rico. He just proved it by lashing out at San Juan’s mayor.
There has been anecdotal evidence that Trump doesn’t quite get it. He has repeatedly misstated the size of the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico. He has repeatedly talked about what a tough state the island was in to begin with — as if to shift blame. He has talked repeatedly about how Puerto Rico is an island “in the middle of the ocean” — as if to temper expectations. He has even talked about how Puerto Rico might be made to repay the cost of its recovery. And he’s decided to take a weekend at his golf club in New Jersey right now, even as the scope of the problems in Puerto Rico is growing.