Biopharma divides over China response

Where it stands: It's both cheaper and faster to do early-stage drug development in China than in the U.S., and that reality is now being reflected in where large pharmaceutical companies like Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer are spending their money.

• "China is now the main source of licensing assets for Western pharma, and for a growing class of built-to-buy biotechs," a recent Evaluate report declares.
• Evaluate projects that Chinese assets will make up more than two-thirds of total industry deal value this year, an increase from 42% just last year and 5% five years ago.

The big picture: Some skeptics warn that the strategy of rapidly snapping up Chinese-developed experimental drugs is shortsighted or even dangerous.

• It risks hollowing out the American biotech base, and it won't stop China from eventually competing directly with large pharmaceutical companies.
• "The more and more we see that capital flow into [China], the more we see … giant-leap-forward technologies based here in the United States starved of the capital they need to build those technologies out," said Jacob Becraft, CEO of biotech Strand Therapeutics.
• "The thing I'm principally concerned with is the frontier biolabs, and that those are being moved to China," said Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks and the former chair of the U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, referring to top-tier biotech capabilities.

The other side: Others take the view that the China work will yield another source of high-quality drugs.

• "American patients deserve access to groundbreaking new drugs. The origins of drugs have never really mattered, nor should they," Atlas Venture partner Bruce Booth wrote in a recent blog post.
• "If China is originating great new medicines that create value for patients, it's in our best interest to own them for the U.S. market," he added.

"Restricting U.S. companies from being able to access promising science coming out of China doesn't help U.S. patients; it just gives China more control," PhRMA chief public affairs officer Robert Zirkelbach told Axios.

• "It will weaken our competitiveness because they'll continue to develop these medicines and sell them to other countries," he added.
• Instead, when pharmaceutical companies license a medicine, "then they determine how it gets developed and who gets access. That's important for U.S. patients and for national security."

Between the lines: No one thinks protectionism alone is the answer, and there's nearly universal agreement that the U.S. needs to speed and streamline domestic research and development.

• The Department of Health and Human Services recently took steps toward this end when it launched Operation TrialBlazer for maintaining U.S. leadership in clinical trials and drug development.
• But the pro-protectionism camp says it's too risky to wait for improvements to U.S. early-stage competitiveness to take effect.

• China's rise "has been a wake-up call to speed up, but that's going to take a little bit of time. This is like, stem the bleeding while we heal the wound over the long term," Kelly said.

It's not just biotech executives and investors engaged in the debate — some policymakers are also concerned about China's prolific rise, and one policy proposal in particular is getting a lot of attention.

• The House Select Committee on China last month announced that it's investigating several large drug manufacturers' clinical trials in China.
• In May, Chair John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) called for restrictions on American investment in Chinese biotechs, and has since introduced legislation that would create them.
• "Screening outbound biotechnology investments is necessary to prevent United States capital and IP from accelerating China's dominance of the pharmaceutical innovation supply chain," Moolenaar wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department.

Details: Specifically, Moolenaar has called for biotechnology to be added to the list of sectors covered by last year's Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act, or COINS, which screens overseas investments in specified technologies linked to U.S. adversaries.

• Other covered industries include semiconductors, quantum information technologies and AI.
• Details of what those regulations would look like are still being hashed out by Treasury through the federal rulemaking process.

Maintaining America's dominance in biotech is a "top priority" of President Trump and the administration, White House spokesman Kush Desai told Axios.

• "While prior administrations wrapped up America's biotech sector in red tape and bureaucracy, the Trump administration is committed to unleashing our America's full innovative potential," he said.