Thinking beyond Bi

Following the resignation of Jingquan Bi, early signs for continued biopharma regulatory reform in China remain positive. But the IP reforms spearheaded by Bi look to have fallen off the government’s priority list, and there is rising uncertainty about whether biotechnology will be dragged into the discord embroiling the U.S. and China.

China lost a champion of innovative biopharma products when the Politburo Standing Committee announced on Aug. 16 that Bi would resign as secretary at the State Administration of Market and Supervision amid a vaccines manufacturing scandal...