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Abortion pill makers brace for restrictions a year after Trump’s election
Mifepristone and Misoprostol pills are pictured Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018, in Skokie, Illinois.
Erin Hooley | Chicago Tribune | Tribune News Service | Getty Images
Just over a year since Donald Trump was elected president again, the $6.9 billion abortion pill industry is operating under the same federal rules he inherited from former President Joe Biden — but new threats to the drug are mounting.
Between a Food and Drug Administration safety review that could upend distribution, legal battles over whether the pill can stay on the market, and anti-abortion rhetoric from activists and the Trump administration, drugmakers appear to be bracing for a storm that could reshape a profitable corner of the health-care industry.
“When it comes to medication abortion, there haven’t been any major policy changes yet in this administration,” said Katie O’Connor, senior director of federal abortion policy for the National Women’s Law Center. “But, we’ve also seen some signaling from the administration that they’re going to do something.”
For now, the FDA permits the pill, mifepristone, to be prescribed via telehealth and delivered by mail. Certified pharmacies are still dispensing it in about half of U.S. states, depending on state law.
Taken with misoprostol, mifepristone forms the standard two-drug regimen that has been used in the U.S. for more than two decades and accounts for about two-thirds of abortions annually, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Though Trump and many key anti-abortion advisors have been in power for more than a year, manufacturing of mifepristone hasn’t dropped. And in September, the FDA quietly approved a generic version from Evita Solutions, the first new U.S. producer since 2019, to end pregnancies through 10 weeks.
Yet, analysts like Joe Thome at TD Cowen, who covers the FDA, say there’s more risk to the market and abortion access than it may seem.
Even small shifts in federal rules could ripple across the supply chain from insurance reimbursement systems to telemedicine platforms and pharmacy compliance protocols, particularly for mifepristone makers such as GenBioPro, Evita Solutions and Danco Laboratories.
“If the FDA were to add warning labels or more restrictive limits on treatment, that then can trickle down into policies for payers, Medicaid reimbursement, companies’ production and performance and have implications for actually getting the drug to to patients for at an affordable rate,” Thome said.
How the FDA could shape access
The FDA’s approval of Evita’s generic pill marked a rare expansion of the mifepristone market. The agency put out no press release or statement about the approval, a silence Thome and many abortion rights advocates interpreted as an effort to avoid reigniting one of the country’s most polarizing debates.
Pharmaceutical stocks barely moved on the approval partly because insiders had anticipated it as a regulatory formality, O’Connor said. Under federal law, once a generic drug meets equivalence standards —meaning it performs the same way in the body as the brand-name version — the FDA has little discretion to block it, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“It took the anti-abortion movement a little bit by surprise, but it shouldn’t have. This is the way the FDA is meant to operate,” O’Connor said.
Behind the scenes, Trump has appointed FDA officials sympathetic to anti‑abortion groups since returning to office. In May, the agency launched a controversial safety review of mifepristone at the behest of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that could lead to tighter telehealth and mail-order restrictions, require in-person doctor prescriptions for the pill or even pull the drug from shelves.
The FDA hasn’t detailed the scope or timeline of the review. Some experts have criticized the studies cited to justify the review as methodologically flawed; Laurie Sobel, an associate director for women’s health policy at KFF, told CNBC they are “junk science.”
Trump has other levers beyond the FDA if he wants to curb access, experts said.
Chief among them is reviving the 19th century Comstock Act — a dormant law prohibiting the mailing of “obscene” materials, including abortion drugs. The Biden administration interpreted it narrowly to allow pill shipments to states where abortion is legal. But the Trump Justice Department could reinterpret the statute more broadly to block the shipments of mifepristone nationwide.
Mifepristone has a 25-year safety record for ending pregnancies in the U.S. Since 2021, the FDA has permitted telehealth and mail-order prescriptions, making abortions cheaper and more accessible, particularly for women far from clinics or in states that restricted the procedure after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decision that overturned abortion rights enshrined in Roe v. Wade.
Meanwhile, pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens haven’t stopped prescribing mifepristone in legal states, though both maintain strict controls to limit liability.
“The more that these drugs are stigmatized, the more that the pharmacies themselves risk becoming stigmatized simply by providing the drugs,” said R. Alta Charo, a professor emerita of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said. “At some point these pharmacies may say we don’t want to get involved in that, and they may just decide not to stock the drug.”
However, Costco announced in August that it would not sell mifepristone in its stores’ pharmacies citing low demand from members and other patient customers.
Dr. Franz Theard watches a patient take mifepristone, the first medication in a medical abortion, at Women’s Reproductive Clinic of New Mexico, in Santa Teresa, January 13, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
How drugmakers are responding
Inside the industry, drugmakers like Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro and Evita Solutions appear to be taking steps that would likely cushion the blow of any crackdown on mifepristone.
Danco Laboratories is seeking FDA approval to expand mifepristone’s approved use to include miscarriage management, The Wall Street Journal first reported. Evita and GenBioPro are also exploring new hormonal therapy products.
“Companies don’t always pursue a formal regulatory approval for a secondary or tertiary use, because to do that, you have to go through another set of clinical trials that’s incredibly expensive,” Charo said. “But, if they do it, then they get an advantage.
GenBioPro also remains embroiled in a lawsuit against the FDA and the state of West Virginia from 2023, arguing that the state’s ban on mifepristone conflicts with the federal approval authority, a concept known as “federal preemption.” The case remains under appeal but more litigation would likely follow suit should future federal directives curb telehealth access to mifepristone.
“There’s been a lot of litigation around mifepristone in the last few years, and there’s a lot of uneasiness by pharmaceutical companies of a court telling the FDA how to act,” Caroline Sacerdote, a litigator at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told CNBC. “That’s not the protocol.”
Misoprostol, one of the two drugs used in a medication abortion, is displayed at the Women’s Reproductive Clinic, which provides legal medication abortion services, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on June 17, 2022.
Robyn Beck | AFP | Getty Images
State-level differences in abortion pill access
As drugmakers take stock of potential federal changes, they have to navigate a wide range of state policies.
The number of abortions in states with total bans or early gestational limits saw sharp drops immediately after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling, but have seen a slight decline since Trump took office, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Nationwide, the number of abortions rose in 2023 and 2024 even with bans on the surgical procedure in a dozen states.
No state has enacted a new medication abortion ban since Trump’s election. In fact, voters in seven states approved ballot measures to protect abortion rights, often by enshrining them in their state constitutions. However, in a few states, enforcement of preexisting abortion bans has hardened.
Texas, Louisiana and Idaho have expanded penalties for mailing abortion pills, while Texas’s “bounty-hunter law” allows private citizens to sue anyone who helps facilitate an illegal abortion — even by advising or mailing pills.
Those measures are subject to a number of ongoing lawsuits. Still, bans on mail-order pills have proven difficult to carry out, Charo said. The U.S. Postal Service doesn’t proactively help states enforce bans or screen mail for pills, and federal law dictates what the USPS can or will do, making it nearly impossible for state authorities to intercept packages without federal assistance.
Even so, simply the possibility of legal action has had a chilling effect on providers who are afraid to prescribe mifepristone, via telehealth or through the mail, to patients across state lines where the medicine is legal but surgical abortion is not.
“Louisiana has indicted a doctor in New York for providing telehealth medication abortion to someone in Louisiana. Texas has sued a doctor in New York for for doing the same thing,” O’Connor said. “That in and of itself, it has a really serious chilling effect on doctors feeling as comfortable prescribing.”
Meanwhile, states like California and New York have strengthened “shield laws” that protect providers treating out-of-state patients. Even so, funding cuts, staff shortages and surging out-of-state demand have forced some clinics to shutter.
“Regardless of whether abortion is legal, clinics are struggling to stay open,” Sobel with KFF said. “The Big Beautiful Bill has cut funding for Planned Parenthood and funding for other family planning … It’s also the restrictions on federal funding that are impacting the ability for clinics that regularly see Medicaid patients too.”
John Swinney has been pressed over whether this week’s Scottish Budget gives some workers the “smallest tax cut in history” – with Tory leader Russell Findlay branding the reduction “miserly” and “insulting”.
The Scottish Conservative leader challenged the First Minister after Tuesday’s Holyrood Budget effectively cut taxes for lower earners, by increasing the threshold for the basic and intermediate bands of income tax.
But Mr Findlay said that would leave workers at most £31.75 a year better off – saying this amounts to a saving of just £61p a week
“That wouldn’t even buy you a bag of peanuts,” the Scottish Tory leader said.
“John Swinney’s Budget might even have broken a world record, because a Scottish Government tax adviser says it ‘maybe the smallest tax cut in history’.”
Raising the “miserly cut” at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Findlay demanded to know if the SNP leader believed his “insulting tax cut will actually help Scotland’s struggling households”.
The attack came as the Tory accused the SNP government of increasing taxes on higher earners, with its freeze on higher income tax thresholds, which will pull more Scots into these brackets.
This is needed to pay for the “SNP’s out of control, unaffordable benefits bill”, the Conservative added.
Mr Findlay said: “The Scottish Conservatives will not back and cannot back a Budget that does nothing to help Scotland’s workers and businesses.
“It hammers people with higher taxes to fund a bloated benefits system.”
Hitting out at Labour – whose leader Anas Sarwar has already declared they will not block the government’s Budget – Mr Findlay said: “It is absolutely mind-blowing that Labour and other so-called opposition parties will let this SNP boorach of a budget pass.
“Don’t the people of Scotland deserve lower taxes, fairer benefits and a government focused on economic growth?”
Mr Swinney said the Budget “delivers on the priorities of the people of Scotland” by “strengthening our National Health Service and supporting people and businesses with the challenges of the cost of living”.
He insisted income tax decisions in the Budget would mean that in 2026-27 “55% of Scottish taxpayers are now expected to pay less income tax than if they lived in England”.
The First Minister went on to say that showed “the people of Scotland have a Government that is on their side”.
Referring to polls putting his party on course to win the Holyrood elections in May, the SNP leader added that “all the current indications show the people of Scotland want to have this Government here for the long term”.
Benefits funding is “keeping children out of poverty”, he told MSPs, adding the Budget contained a “range of measures” that would build on existing support.
The First Minister said: “What that is a demonstration of is a Government that is on the side of the people of Scotland and I am proud of the measures we set out in the Budget on Tuesday.”
Meanwhile he said the Tories wanted to make tax cuts that would cost £1 billion, with “not a scrap of detail about how that would be delivered”.
With the weekly leaders’ question time clash coming less than 48 hours after the draft 2026-27 Budget was unveiled, the First Minister also faced questions from Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, who insisted that the proposals “lacks ambition for Scotland”.
Pressing his SNP rival, the Scottish Labour leader said: “While he brags about his £6 a year tax cut for the lowest paid, one million Scots including nurses, teachers and police officers face being forced to pay more.
“Even his own tax adviser says this is a political stunt. So why does John Swinney believe that someone earning £33,500 has the broadest shoulders and therefore should pay more tax in Scotland?”
Mr Swinney, however, said that many public sector workers would be better off in Scotland.
He told the Scottish Labour leader: “A band six nurse at the bottom of the scale will take home an additional £1,994 after tax compared to the same band in England.
“A qualified teacher at the bottom of the band will take home £6,365 more after tax in Scotland than the equivalent in England. There are the facts for Mr Sarwar.”
BP has warned it expects to book up to five billion dollars (£3.7 billion) in write-downs across its gas and low-carbon energy division as it also said oil trading had been weak in its final quarter.
The oil giant joined FTSE 100 rival Shell, after it also last week cautioned over a weaker performance from trading, which comes amid a drop in the cost of crude.
BP said Brent crude prices averaged 63.73 dollars per barrel in the fourth quarter of last year compared with 69.13 dollars a barrel in the previous three months.
Oil prices have slumped in recent weeks, partly driven lower due to US President Donald Trump’s move to oust and detain Venezuela’s leader and lay claim to crude in the region, leading to fears of a supply glut.
In its update ahead of full-year results, BP also said it expects to book a four billion dollar (£3 billion) to five billion dollar (£3.7 billion) impairment in its so-called transition businesses, largely relating to its gas and low-carbon energy division.
But it said further progress had been made in slashing debts, with its net debt falling to between 22 billion and 23 billion dollars (£16.4 billion to £17.1 billion) at the end of 2025, down from 26.1 billion dollars (£19.4 billion) at the end of September.
It comes after the firm’s surprise move last month to appoint Woodside Energy boss Meg O’Neill as its new chief executive as Murray Auchincloss stepped down after less than two years in the role.
Ms O’Neill will start in the role on April 1, with Carol Howle, current executive vice president of supply, trading and shipping at BP, acting as chief executive on an interim basis until the new boss joins.
Ms O’Neill’s appointment has made history as she will become the first woman to run BP – and also the first to head up a top five global oil company – as well as being the first ever outsider to take on the post at BP.
Shares in BP fell 1% in morning trading on Wednesday after the latest update.
Business
Budget 2026: Kolkata realtors seek tax relief, revised affordable housing cap; eye demand revival – The Times of India
Real estate developers in Kolkata have urged the Centre to use the Union Budget to recalibrate housing policies to reflect rising land and construction costs, calling for higher tax benefits for homebuyers and a long-pending revision of the affordable housing definition to revive demand, especially in the mid-income segment, PTI reported.With the Budget set to be tabled on February 1, industry players said measures such as revisiting price caps for affordable homes, rationalising GST on under-construction properties and easing approval processes could significantly improve affordability and sales momentum.Sushil Mohta, president of CREDAI West Bengal and chairman of Merlin Group, said reforms must align with current market realities. “Revisiting the affordable housing definition, rationalising housing loan interest deductions and streamlining GST rates will significantly improve affordability and demand, especially for middle-income homebuyers,” he told PTI, adding that a policy push for rental housing and wider access to formal housing finance is crucial amid rapid urbanisation.Mahesh Agarwal, managing director of Purti Realty, said continued policy support through tax rationalisation and infrastructure spending remains critical. “A re-evaluation of affordable housing price limits in line with rising land and construction costs, along with adjustments to GST on under-construction property, will enhance affordability,” he said, stressing that simpler tax frameworks and incentives for first-time buyers would help stabilise the market and speed up project execution.Echoing similar concerns, Merlin Group MD Saket Mohta pointed to sharp increases in construction costs since the introduction of GST in 2017, underscoring the need for further rationalisation. He also called for raising the affordable housing price cap from Rs 45 lakh to around Rs 80–90 lakh and expanding unit size norms. “Mid-income housing will be the key demand driver going into 2026, and supportive tax and policy measures are essential to sustain growth,” he said.Eden Realty MD Arya Sumant said the Budget must strike a balance between fiscal discipline and growth-oriented reforms. “Higher home loan interest deductions for mid-income and first-time buyers, an updated affordable housing definition, GST rationalisation and faster approvals will improve project viability and speed-to-market,” he said, adding that sustained urban infrastructure investment would unlock demand across residential and commercial segments.Sahil Saharia, CEO of Bengal Shristi Infrastructure Development Ltd, said policy focus should shift towards large, integrated developments. “Support for mixed-use townships, rental housing and commercial hubs, along with faster clearances and digital single-window mechanisms, can help create self-sustained urban ecosystems and improve execution efficiency,” he said.Developers said clear and stable policy signals in the Budget could help restore homebuyer confidence, attract long-term capital and ensure sustainable growth for the real estate sector in eastern India.
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