New Delhi, Aug. 27 -- Three weeks before India's pharmaceutical sector was supposed to benefit from Federal Reserve rate cuts and a more accommodating dollar, an executive order signed at the White House on August 1 reintroduced the scenario the industry had hoped was fading. Trump's pharmaceutical import tariff directive, which set a ceiling of 25% on drug imports and called for a phased implementation schedule, landed differently on the two halves of India's pharma universe.

the domestic-oriented names, Mankind Pharma, IPCA Laboratories, Abbott India, held flat or advanced, absorbing the broader market's flight to defensive. The US-revenue-heavy names moved the other way.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, India's largest drug maker by ma...