It’s time to get real about U.S. biocompetitiveness 

The U.S. can’t win by bashing China. It needs to focus on bolstering the industry

The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party’s March 7 hearing about the intersection of biotechnology and national security was both farcical and deeply serious. The hearing demonstrated how little members of Congress know about the life sciences and how confusion tethered to anxiety about geopolitical rivalries can lead to bad policy. It also provided a glimmer of hope that lawmakers could be persuaded to consider taking steps to bolster the U.S. bioeconomy.

The spectacle highlighted the need for scientists and entrepreneurs to build relationships in Washington. Every member of Congress should have someone they can call on who understands the biotech industry, someone whom they trust to help distinguish between the credible and the incredible.

The lack of personal connections between biotech innovators and politicians, along with the industry’s failure to seize on prior opportunities to negotiate reasonable pricing legislation, led to enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare drug price negotiation program. The same disconnect is greasing the path for anti-China biotech legislation. 

Members of Congress are preparing to slay imaginary dragons while disregarding real problems. The contrast between the real and the imaginary was vivid at the select committee hearing. 

The most effective way to win the global rivalry is to grow U.S. capacity, not to try to tear down other countries’ capabilities.

For those close to the industry, the biggest geopolitical threat associated with biotechnology is that through a combination of self-inflicted wounds and complacency, the U.S. will lose its preeminence. This would be devastating not just for the U.S., but for the world, because there’s no sign that the confluence of capital, science and market opportunity that has fueled the U.S. biotech era can be replicated anywhere else. It is not too late to avoid an irreversible decline, but action is needed urgently.

The most effective way to win the global rivalry is to grow U.S. capacity, not to try to tear down other countries’ capabilities.

Robert Nelsen, co-founder of Arch Venture Partners, made this point in a recent interview with BioCentury. The select committee’s witnesses — Tara O’Toole, senior fellow at In-Q-Tel; Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks Holdings Inc. (NYSE:DNA); and Charles Clancy, CTO at the Mitre Corp. — elaborated on it at the hearing.

Their messages were obscured by a bipartisan exercise in political posturing and ill-informed pontification.

Super humans and mind readers

Citing magazine articles, Marvel comics and their own imaginations, members of the select committee conjured images of China using biotechnology to do nefarious things that are thrilling in Hollywood movies, but are less enticing when the lawmakers believe they are imminent dangers.

In opening remarks, the select committee chair, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), warned that China is working on “genetic enhancement of soldiers” for the People’s Liberation Army and that “genetically tailored weapons are already a trending topic in PLA military circles.”

The fact that people in China may be talking about such things doesn’t make them real, just as a dissertation on “using biotechnology to create a better soldier” by a student at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, or a story in a British tabloid about “super-soldiers bred like cattle to kill” don’t reflect U.S. military doctrine or NATO plans.  

Exaggerating the scope of a real Chinese initiative, Gallagher said China is “executing a plan to collect the DNA of every man, woman, and child on the planet.”

The ranking Democrat, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), followed Gallagher by asserting that the CCP is “conducting human experiments” to give soldiers “biologically enhanced capabilities today.” He added that according to “some reports, it is even researching mind-reading software to ensure CCP officials remain loyal to the party. You can’t make this stuff up!”

Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi cited these scenarios, rather than more realistic threats, such as breaches of cybersecurity, pilfering IP, and invasion of privacy, to justify a complete decoupling and disengagement of the U.S. biotech industry from China.

“Every bit of value flowing to Chinese biotech or genetic science companies will be used to strengthen the CCP and the PLA,” Gallagher said. “We must assume that, and we must operate accordingly, and we must cut off this flow of support.” Echoing a Cold War slogan, he added: “We cannot afford to keep funding our own destruction.”

Here’s what would actually be destructive: cutting off access to biomanufacturing capacity provided by Chinese companies before similar capabilities are created in the U.S.

Krishnamoorthi warned that the “competition with the CCP on biotech is make or break. If we win, it will propel our nation light years ahead and improve the lives of countless Americans. But if we lose, we face a bleak future of super-human soldiers and designer babies.”

He got the part about the urgency of the moment right, but Krishnamoorthi misunderstands the consequence of the U.S. losing its edge in biotechnology. It isn’t super humans or designer babies, it is missed opportunities to develop cures for diseases, and to create bio-based technologies that could mitigate climate change, create more nutritious foods and fuel environmentally sustainable economic prosperity.

Misdiagnosing the problem makes it impossible to fix it.

Comments from other members of the select committee reflected the confusion and anxiety that is pervasive in Washington about technologies that few policymakers understand.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) said he could “imagine a world in which the combination of artificial intelligence and biotechnology enables anyone anywhere to manufacture the ‘perfect pathogen’ that is both highly lethal and highly transmissible.” He asked how Congress can “prevent that nightmare from becoming a reality? And is that nightmare even preventable?”

O’Toole tried to reassure Torres, along with other policymakers who might have been listening, that such concerns are misplaced, and to pivot the conversation to steps that can be taken to make U.S. biotech stronger and more competitive.

“I do not think that is a credible near-term nightmare and I am getting increasingly worried that doomsday fears of AI and biotechnology are going to get in the way of the use of those two very powerful technologies,” she said. “We have to be very careful when we speculate about the bad things that could happen. We certainly need biosecurity, but we have to focus on what we can do today and not think in terms of all of the possible speculative futures.”

Similarly, while she agreed with select committee members who expressed concerns that BGI Genomics Co. Ltd. (SZSE:300676) may be supporting the Chinese military, O’Toole suggested that Congress take a wider view of its activities. “I understand the proclivity to talk about military applications, and obviously those are very important, but what they are doing is outpacing the United States in collecting the world’s biggest genome library.”

Prescriptions for prosperity

O’Toole told the select committee that BGI is doing things the U.S. should be doing. “We ought to be the ones with the biggest gene bank in the world, and we ought to be the ones with the biggest genome collection in the world. And we’re not. And shame on us. They are out in front of us in many ways.”

In her written testimony, O’Toole noted concerns about Chinese biotech companies contributing to the country’s military, as well as China’s determination to become a “dominant global force in biotechnology.” She also noted that China, as one of the world’s most populous nations, will need to harness biotechnology to feed, clothe and heal its citizens. “China,” she stated, “is directing much of its efforts in biotechnology towards forging solutions to urgent domestic problems — specifically, to improving health care and bolstering China’s food security.”

In his comments at the hearing and written testimony, Kelly stressed the need to build up U.S. biotech infrastructure, including biomanufacturing, as an economic and a national security imperative. “When it comes to national security,” he stated, “it would be unwise for the U.S. or its partners to rely on China to provide fundamental R&D services or essential biosecurity tools and capabilities. The economic security argument for maintaining U.S. leadership in biotechnology is very strong.”

Clancy said Congress is significantly underfunding initiatives at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology to develop standards that could allow the U.S. to shape the ways biotechnologies are developed and implemented globally. He made recommendations on improving security and other steps for improving biotech infrastructure in written remarks. 

Gallagher is in a rush to get legislation enacted because he’s retiring at year-end. If he wants to leave a positive legacy, he should at least start the debate in Congress on how to prevent further erosion of the public policy pillars that have made possible three decades of explosive biomedical progress.

The prescription for prosperity isn’t complex: invest in basic and translational research; protect IP; maintain a science-based, transparent regulatory environment; and welcome talent and capital from around the globe. 

To counter biocompetition from China, revitalizing U.S. biomanufacturing would be a good place to start. Pharmas and start-up biotechs would be less likely to turn to foreign contract manufacturers if companies in the U.S. could provide similar services on an economically competitive basis.

Failing to invest in and expand biomanufacturing in the U.S. will cause biotech to follow in the steps of the semiconductor and other high-tech industries that fell behind because they believed, incorrectly, that they could prosper by retaining R&D while outsourcing manufacturing.

A combination of NIMBY regulations, the lack of a trained workforce, and favorable tax and regulatory policies in other countries, have made it difficult to build advanced manufacturing facilities in the U.S. The government could help by funding training programs, participating in public-private partnerships to create next-generation biomanufacturing technologies, and providing regulatory and financial incentives to make medicines in the U.S.

The country is deeply divided on immigration policy, but it shouldn’t be difficult to gain consensus on the wisdom of making it easy for STEM graduates to stay in the U.S.

The U.S. should have a modern clinical trial infrastructure, large-scale biobanks, and a regulatory system that keeps pace with advances in diagnostics, AI and new therapeutic modalities.

Joining together to work on these kinds of initiatives would be far more productive, and satisfying, than erecting a protectionist wall between the U.S. and China.

Signed commentaries do not necessarily reflect the views of BioCentury.