Trump’s Nomination of RFK Jr. to Lead HHS a Potential Industry Headwind

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 14 that he is nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under his new administration in 2025. RFK Jr. has strong views on public health and, if confirmed, could use his position to make changes at several of the 13 HHS divisions. In our Nov. 8 note, we discussed the potential tailwinds of a Trump administration, including possible repeal of the Medicare negotiation provision in the Inflation Reduction Act, less Federal Trade Commission scrutiny of acquisitions, and a likely continuation of lower corporate taxes. However, if RFK’s nomination is confirmed, we expect more “wild card” headwinds to the industry will come to fruition. As the HHS covers the US Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an HHS secretary skeptical of vaccine and obesity drug benefits could work to erode public trust, put up roadblocks for approval of new vaccines, and prevent the CDC from recommending any vaccines that make it through the approval process. With less federal guidance, we think it is possible certain states could waver in support of broad mandates for childhood vaccines. All of these could weigh on sales of vaccines in the US, including covid vaccine makers Moderna and BioNTech and big biopharma vaccine makers like GSK (we model 14% of GSK revenue from US vaccine sales in 2024), Pfizer (12%), Merck (9%), and Sanofi (6%).