As a veteran who was wounded during a mortar attack in Iraq, I’m all too familiar with the fact that our enemies can hit us with little warning.
I’ve seen firsthand what happens when we underestimate threats, and it never ends well for those who are sent into the fight.
That’s why I’m increasingly concerned that America is unprepared for one of the most critical battles of the 21st century — the fight to keep China from taking control of the global biotech industry. If we lose our current, increasingly endangered lead, Americans won’t merely become dependent on a communist adversary for lifesaving medicines; we’ll also lose our capacity to respond to pandemics and defend against bioweapons.
Instead of trying to bolster our biotech industry, many policymakers are inadvertently — and sometimes intentionally — undermining it.
The Chinese Communist Party has set a goal of dominating the industry. It has made enormous investments in building up its biotech expertise. As a recent Senate report warns, China has made staggering progress in the past decade. It now leads in synthetic biology research and is barely behind the United States in the number of clinical trials conducted.
Unfortunately, Washington isn’t doing much to fight back.
In many ways, our leaders are making it harder to research and manufacture medicines here. The White House continues to consider sweeping tariffs on medicines, which would disrupt domestic manufacturers’ supply chains. The Trump administration is calling for price controls on medicines, a strategy that has previously hobbled Europe’s biotech industry. One of the president’s top economists in his first term just warned that these price controls could prevent the development of 210 new medicines over the coming decade.
Those “missing medicines” aren’t abstract; they represent more pain and a worse quality of life.
Meanwhile, other policymakers want to cut funding for the National Institutes of Health, which provides much of the support for basic scientific research that ultimately leads to breakthrough medicines. Ninety-nine percent of new drugs benefit from scientific discoveries that were partly enabled by NIH funding.
The good news is that to win the biotech battle, we don’t need entirely new strategies. We just need to avoid self-destructive policies and recommit to policies that reward risk-taking and strengthen our security.
That starts with protecting intellectual property at home and abroad. Biotech breakthroughs are enormously risky, and if companies can’t prevent rivals from prematurely copying their discoveries, they won’t invest the billions required to bring new treatments to market. At the same time, the United States must defend itself against intellectual property theft, which costs American inventors $225 billion annually.
We also need to double down on research and manufacturing. Federal funding for basic scientific research generates more than $2.50 in economic activity for every dollar spent. Market incentives such as tax credits for reshoring biomanufacturing can help companies create jobs on American soil. If the next pandemic strikes, we can’t afford to depend on Chinese labs or factories for our response.
Biotech isn’t just another industry. It has immense strategic value. China knows this, which is why it is trying so hard to steal our lead.
The question is whether America will meet that challenge with policies that strengthen our innovators, or hobble them. Tariffs, price controls and research cuts would hand Beijing the advantage. Strengthening intellectual property protections, boosting funding for basic scientific research, and incentivizing more domestic R&D and manufacturing would keep that advantage where it belongs: in American hands.