US House Advances Bipartisan Bill to Block Chinese Biotech Companies

This month IssueVot­er and BillTrack50 take a look at the BIOSECURE Act, a sig­nif­i­cant esca­la­tion in efforts to restrict Chi­nese influ­ence in Amer­i­ca’s biotech­nol­o­gy sec­tor. The bipar­ti­san leg­is­la­tion, passed by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Sep­tem­ber and spear­head­ed by Reps. Brad Wen­strup (R‑Ohio) and Raja Krish­namoor­thi (D‑Ill.), aims to pro­tect Amer­i­can patient data and pre­vent fed­er­al funds from flow­ing to biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies deemed to pose nation­al secu­ri­ty risks. At its core, the BIOSECURE Act seeks to cre­ate a fire­wall between fed­er­al agen­cies and cer­tain biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies. Under the leg­is­la­tion, fed­er­al agen­cies would be barred from con­tract­ing with des­ig­nat­ed “biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies of con­cern” or pro­vid­ing grants and loans to enti­ties that use their ser­vices. This pro­hi­bi­tion extends to orga­ni­za­tions that main­tain con­tracts with these com­pa­nies, cre­at­ing a rip­ple effect through­out the biotech­nol­o­gy sup­ply chain. The bill takes direct aim at five Chi­nese com­pa­nies: BGI, MGI, Com­plete Genomics, WuXi AppTec,and WuXi Bio­log­ics. Beyond these spe­cif­ic des­ig­na­tions, it estab­lish­es a frame­work for iden­ti­fy­ing addi­tion­al com­pa­nies as secu­ri­ty risks, par­tic­u­lar­ly those con­trolled by “for­eign adver­saries” includ­ing Chi­na, Rus­sia, North Korea, Iran and Cuba.

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Key Points:

1. Bill tar­gets five spe­cif­ic Chi­nese com­pa­nies includ­ing BGI and WuXi AppTec
2. Leg­is­la­tion would block fed­er­al con­tracts with “biotech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies of concern”
3. Crit­ics argue bill lacks a prop­er inves­ti­ga­tion process and could harm health­care innovation
4. Com­pa­nies defend them­selves, empha­siz­ing pri­vate own­er­ship and lim­it­ed data access