Last week, President Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington for the first such visit in a decade. The summit covered tariffs, Iran, and rare earth minerals. In response, China has announced a new five-year plan to make biomedicine a national “pillar industry.”
By 2030, China aims to produce a quarter of the world’s first-in-class drugs.
That is a big target, and it comes with serious ambition behind it. The United States currently produces medicines at seven times China’s rate in first-in-class drugs, but Beijing is catching up fast.
The People’s Republic of China intends to expand its production of novel pharmaceuticals at an annual rate of 20%, expedite regulatory clearances, and reinforce safeguards for pioneering drug research. It currently stands first among nations in the yearly launch of clinical investigations. By 2025, domestically conceived medicines made up nearly 30% of all drugs under development worldwide, having risen from below 7% just ten years earlier. Chinese laboratories produce roughly 20% of the active components employed in medicines that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deems essential.
Gary Locke and Patrick McHenry on the Race
The American Biosecurity Initiative has two senior advisers: Gary Locke, who served as U.S. ambassador to China, U.S. secretary of commerce, and governor of Washington, and Patrick McHenry, a former U.S. representative from North Carolina and former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Locke worked to reform America’s export control system to better protect sensitive technologies. McHenry helped craft export controls on surveillance technologies that could benefit China’s military or intelligence agencies. Together, they are pushing back on the idea that blanket restrictions are the answer to China’s biotech push.
Washington is weighing broad restrictions on China’s biotech progress. The authors contend that these moves would damage U.S. competitiveness and drive Chinese firms toward self-sufficiency. They point to a pattern in other industries that shows what happens when the U.S. tries to stop China entirely.
Why Tariffs Are the Wrong Tool
The authors warn that restrictions on U.S. biotech collaborations with Chinese companies would isolate American firms from promising experimental medicines. They also note that such export controls might force Chinese companies to develop more efficient technologies on their own.
The authors caution that imposing blanket tariffs on numerous drug ingredients could unsettle essential U.S. supply chains before adequate domestic production is established. Their warning is that the remedy might prove more harmful than the ailment itself. Instead, they contend, the nation should focus on building its own strength rather than depending solely on punishing China.
In semiconductors, 5G, and other strategic industries, America has learned that bans alone cannot hold back China’s goals for long.
Before, when the U.S. tightened rules on chips moving out of the country, Chinese companies were driven to spend far more on research and file many more patents. If the U.S. now closes off access to Chinese partners and markets in biotechnology, a similar chain of events could follow.
The Case for Building at Home
Strengthening U.S. biotech capabilities domestically is presented as the surest way to secure America’s lead. The authors argue that expanding domestic and allied capacity to manufacture critical medicines and ingredients would reduce China’s leverage in any future crisis. That is the core of their argument.
The plan calls for bringing together production, study, and clinical work with partners including Japan, South Korea, Europe, and India. It also includes steps to make it simpler for firms to put money into new kinds of production tools. The aim is to create a separate system that sits apart from Chinese producers.
The writers do not deny the danger. They merely hold that the U.S. can take the lead in this contest through excellence rather than attempting to halt China’s progress entirely.
What the U.S. Built Before
Basic research got generous federal funding, which fed a university and corporate system that developed and trained a skilled workforce, alongside immigration policies that attracted top scientists and engineers. Together, these elements built America’s original biotech leadership and gave the country decades of advantage.
The authors do not present a straightforward fix. Instead they issue a caution: the United States has attempted to halt China previously, and that effort failed. Examples include semiconductors, 5G, and other strategic fields, which demonstrate that prohibitions alone cannot permanently impede China’s goals. The authors urge the U.S. to draw lessons from those past errors rather than repeating them.
The Three Paths Forward
The authors lay out three paths for protecting U.S. biotech leadership:
- Strengthen the weakest links in the supply chain, expanding domestic and allied capacity to manufacture the most critical medicines and ingredients while maintaining adequate strategic reserves.
- Leverage the alliance network, coordinating manufacturing, research, and clinical development with partners like Japan, South Korea, Europe, and India to build a more secure but economically viable alternative to Chinese developers.
- Make it easier for companies to invest in the next generation of manufacturing technologies so America can build industrial capacity without relying on Chinese suppliers.
The authors suggest that the U.S. can lessen China’s influence without hurting American firms or customers by becoming stronger on its own terms. Each measure aims to cut down Beijing’s sway while keeping costs low for both U.S. producers and shoppers.
The authors issue a warning about blanket tariffs on many drug ingredients, saying they could upset important U.S. supply chains before enough domestic production is up and running. They also raise an alarm over plans to restrict U.S. biotech alliances and investments tied to Chinese firms, arguing these would isolate American businesses from promising experimental medicines. Both dangers stem from the same reasoning: that shutting down China is simpler than outmatching it.
The writers do not downplay the danger. Instead, they hold that the United States can come out ahead in this contest through superior performance, rather than attempting to halt China’s progress entirely.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs small American biotech companies against any new regulatory burdens that would raise their costs of entry and against any deals between Washington and Beijing that would favor the interests of either side’s largest firms over the independent innovators who actually build new medicines. The U.S. already leads in first-in-class drug production; the risk is that new controls would hurt the very firms that need to compete freely.
The authors argue that restrictions on U.S. biotech collaborations with Chinese companies would isolate American firms from promising experimental medicines, and that blanket tariffs on drug ingredients could unsettle essential U.S. supply chains before adequate domestic production is established. The paper agrees with that assessment.
The paper wants Washington to focus on building U.S. and allied capacity to manufacture critical medicines and ingredients, coordinating with partners like Japan, South Korea, Europe, and India, and making it simpler for firms to invest in new production technologies. The goal is a separate system that sits apart from Chinese producers, reducing Beijing’s leverage without raising costs for American producers or shoppers.
Source material: “Opinion: America’s biotech race with China must be won at home,” STAT.
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