Congress has set its sights on China’s biotechnology industry and the US’s reliance on it. Legislators are worried about the Chinese Communist Party’s access to Americans’ genetic data and US taxpayer funds helping bolster CCP-affiliated companies and are proposing to sever ties between any federally funded work and Chinese “companies of concern,” which include BGI and Wuxi AppTech. 

The U.S. biotechnology sector is an indispensable, strategic national asset. But what if we’re taking it for granted? Recent attempts to weaken IP protections for Covid-19 vaccines and to implement drug price controls threaten future U.S. leadership in biotechnology.