Federal Commission Calls for Multibillion-dollar Biotech Funding Boost

Congress must take urgent action to boost the U.S. biotechnology industry, or risk irrevocably falling behind China, a new report from the National Security Commission on Emerging Technology warns. A bill acting on some of the report’s recommendations was introduced on Wednesday.

“Until recently, America’s position as the biotech leader of the world was considered unassailable; it was also undisputed, but China has caught up,” said commission chair Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the report on Tuesday. Young described the report as having two objectives: “make America innovate faster, and slow China down.”

The report, published Tuesday, urges Congress to support billions of dollars in federal funding over the next five years. It presents 49 recommendations to grow the domestic biotech industry, end supply chain dependencies on China, and protect U.S. intellectual property from theft, with roles for multiple federal agencies to support biotech research, manufacturing, and data standardization.

“Today the United States is locked in a competition with China that will define the coming century,” Young said. “This competition is playing out not only through arms races, but also through the quest to dominate cutting-edge technology. Biotechnology is the next phase in this competition,” he added.

The report paints a stark picture of China’s rising power in biotech, suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party could use its biotech advances and control of supply chain elements to strategically weaken the U.S. “We must not treat Chinese state-run companies as ordinary competitors in our market, even if it means using more expensive alternatives,” the report says.

The report echoes many of the concerns about Chinese biotech companies raised by members of Congress who supported last year’s BIOSECURE Act to prohibit contracting with certain biotechnology providers. Though the bipartisan legislation passed the House, it ultimately stalled in the Senate.

Young and report commissioners Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK), and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced the National Biotechnology Initiative Act in both the House and Senate on Wednesday. The bill would support the report’s recommendations by creating a National Biotechnology Coordination Office within the Executive Office of the President, a new role of principal advisor to the president for biotechnology, and an interagency committee to coordinate biotech efforts across federal departments and agencies. The bill recommends providing the National Science Foundation with $132 million over five years to establish the National Biotechnology Coordination Office.

The federal commission that authored the report was created by Congress via the fiscal year 2022 Defense Authorization Act to explore how the U.S. can boost its domestic biotech industry and use advances in biotechnology to boost national security and economic competitiveness. The commission published an interim report last year that warned of China’s advances in biotech but with less alarm than the final report.

“A little over a year ago, we asserted that the United States was still ahead, despite considerable efforts by the People’s Republic of China to surpass us. We now believe the United States is falling behind in key areas of emerging biotechnology as China surges ahead,” reads the opening to the final report.

The report’s final recommendations are organized into six focus areas — making biotechnology a national priority, mobilizing the private sector, maximizing the benefits of biotechnology for defense, out-innovating strategic competitors, boosting the biotechnology workforce, and working with allies and partners.

The report proposes two “grand research challenges,” one focused on “making biotechnology predictably engineerable,” and the other focused on “making biomanufacturing scale-up predictable, rapid, and cost-competitive.” The report suggests $5 billion in funding over five years for the first challenge and $490 million in funding over three years for the second challenge. The report also recommends that NSF establish a new grant program to support the transition of high school and advanced degree students into biotechnology careers.

Federal science agencies such as the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and the Department of Energy also play a key role in the report’s recommendations. The report recommends, for example, that Congress should make NIST a “hub” for biotechnology, biometrology, and biological data standards. Through standardization, the hub would create a “common language” for the biotech industry and ensure U.S. biological data is ready for use in AI models, the report says. The report recommends $640 million be appropriated to NIST over five years to support these efforts.

DOE and the Department of Commerce could play a key role in boosting domestic biotechnology manufacturing, the report suggests, recommending that Congress provide $800 million over five years for the two agencies to lead the creation of a network of manufacturing facilities. The report also recommends that DOE create a data resource for researchers known as the Web of Biological Data (WOBD) with $700 million in funding over five years, and $1.2 billion for DOE to establish Centers for Biotechnology within the existing National Lab network to support grand research challenges.