Europe's medical device makers hit by Trump tariffs

Europe's medical device makers are feeling the pain from President Donald Trump's trade moves. Siemens Healthineers AG shares fell the most on record on Wednesday after the German company warned that it expects the impact from tariffs to roughly double to ₹400 million ($460 million) in fiscal 2026.

While the manufacturer sees good business prospects in the US, it's managing costs tightly and may "think about potential value-add shifts" to counter the duties, chief financial officer Jochen Schmitz told Bloomberg Television.

Healthineers is not alone. Danish peer Ambu A/S on Wednesday said the levies will hold back its margin by around 2 percentage points. Royal Philips NV is projecting as much as ₹200 million tariff hit this year. Despite an EU-US deal to reduce the duties, uncertainty remains, with Washington launching a probe into imports of medical devices in September that might lead to fresh levies.


Healthineers shares fell as much as 13% in Frankfurt, the steepest intraday drop since the stock started trading in 2018. Ambu slumped as much as 19% in Copenhagen after its quarterly earnings missed estimates.

Healthineers makes MRI and CT scanners in Germany and China. It ships those to countries including the US, its single biggest market where it generated 38% of its total sales in fiscal 2025 that ended in September. The tariff headwind was around ₹200 million in that period, Schmitz said.

The company also produces blood-testing diagnostics equipment and provides cancer treatment technologies via its Varian division that's headquartered in the US. Healthineers is seeing comparable sales growth of 5% to 6% in fiscal 2026, it said earlier Wednesday.

That's a "cautious guidance," Jefferies analysts led by Julien Dormois said in a note.

Separately, Healthineers has looked into a potential sale of its diagnostics segment, which could be valued at more than ₹6 billion, Bloomberg reported in September.

The transformation of the diagnostics division "is working well," Schmitz said, adding that Healthineers is giving the business "the freedom it needs to get back to where it deserves." He declined to confirm a potential sale.