SCOOP: Inside Congress’s bipartisan plan to “safeguard our nation and stay ahead of China in biotechnology”

THE LOWDOWN:

• Amidst President Donald Trump’s tariffs that could cripple China’s economy, a bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators is rolling out legislation that will help America “keep pace with our near peer adversaries, such as China.”

• The group, consisting of Sens. Todd Young (R., Ind.) and Alex Padilla (D., Calif.), along with Reps. Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.) and Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), is introducing the National Biotechnology Initiative Act, in order to “set in motion a whole-of-government approach to advancing biotechnology for U.S. national security, economic productivity, and competitiveness.”

• While China has strategically prioritized its approach to the industry, America’s approach has been precariously piecemeal.

• The legislation would primarily create a National Biotechnology Coordination Office (NBCO) within the Executive Office of the President that would both lead and coordinate federal biotechnology efforts.

Amidst President Donald Trump’s tariffs that could cripple China’s economy, a bipartisan, bicameral group of legislators is rolling out legislation that will help America “keep pace with our near peer adversaries, such as China,” a national security expert noted to the Washington Reporter.

The group, consisting of Sens. Todd Young (R., Ind.) and Alex Padilla (D., Calif.), along with Reps. Stephanie Bice (R., Okla.) and Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), is introducing the National Biotechnology Initiative Act, in order to “set in motion a whole-of-government approach to advancing biotechnology for U.S. national security, economic productivity, and competitiveness,” the group wrote. Biotechnology relates to everything from increasing supply chain security to resilience to scalability, by allowing countries to control access to critical components.

While China has strategically prioritized its approach to the industry, America’s approach has been precariously piecemeal. “Without a coordinated approach, we will fall behind China and won’t be able to recover our lead,” Khanna warned.

“The United States is facing its latest Sputnik moment, and that moment is in the field of biotechnology,” Bonnie Glick, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told the Reporter. “The race we’re in is against our near peer rival, the People’s Republic of China. Biology, and life as we know it, is now a research area for innovation. America tends to innovate for good - we make better crops that are drought-resistant, we invent better drug therapies to treat diseases. But we are living at a time when China is innovating too, and as we learned through COVID-19, a leak in a biotech lab in Wuhan can wreak havoc on the world.”

The lawmakers are the four Congressional Commissioners on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB). Their legislation would primarily create a National Biotechnology Coordination Office (NBCO) within the Executive Office of the President that would both lead and coordinate federal biotechnology efforts.

This agency would “streamline biotechnology regulation to ease regulatory burdens on well-understood products, negotiate interagency agreements to describe clear regulatory pathways, and work with the Office of Management and Budget in cases of disagreement,” the lawmakers said.

“We must streamline regulation and allow private industry to lead our country forward in this new era,” Bice said. “America must maintain our competitive advantage, have the capabilities to safeguard our nation, and stay ahead of China in biotechnology.”

This new legislation comes amidst a renewed focus by members of both the legislative and executive branches to tackle the threats posed by Communist China, which has ballooned its own spending on biopharmaceuticals. “In 2023, China’s R&D spending in biopharmaceuticals reached $15 billion, a forty-two-thousand percent increase from 2015,” a China hawk told the Reporter.

The report’s findings have also found fans outside of government. Ylli Bajraktari, the president of the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), noted that “the rigor and bipartisan spirit underpinning the NSCEB's report echo the process I was honored to help lead for the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence.” Bajraktari added that “both commissions represent a critical model for how America can address transformative technological shifts.”

Bajraktari’s SCSP is hosting another summit relating to these issues, where he noted that his group “convene[s] experts to explore the convergence of AI with other critical technologies reshaping our world. Teaming up with NSCEB for this event felt essential, bringing together the very people who define our technological future – the innovators driving discovery, and the policymakers navigating the complex landscape these discoveries create.”

Padilla noted just how wide ranging the opportunities for biotechnology are. “American innovation in biotechnology will unlock new economic and national security possibilities across a wide array of key sectors, from battlefield innovation and industrial manufacturing to health care and agriculture,” he said. “Keeping all federal agencies aligned and working on domestic biotech priorities is critical, but our Commission has found that communication is still fragmented. By creating the [NBCO], our bipartisan legislation would ensure lasting, organized collaboration between federal agencies to build a long-term biotech strategy and secure American leadership in its development.”

American investment in this industry would impact everything from health care to agriculture to manufacturing to energy to defense, advocates note. Currently, China controls up to 80 percent of global biopharmaceutical supply, and at a time where Trump is threatening to levy mass tariffs on the communist country, the opportunity is ripe for America to up its game in this field — this legislation would help prevent potential national security concerns that emerged especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which likely originated in a Chinese lab.

“The United States has long been a leader in biotechnology, but we now risk losing our edge to China,” Young, the chairman of the NSCEB, cautioned. “In this era of global competition, we need to promote American biotech innovation and manufacturing. Our legislation will provide a long-term strategy to make federal agencies work together — with greater efficiency — to support American biotechnology.”

“In 2023, China produced 60% of the most-cited research papers, while the U.S. accounted for just 7%,” the lawmakers noted. They also want the U.S. to invest $15 billion over five years to “unleash the full weight of American innovation in the biotechnology sector.”

The full report can be found here.