Two postgraduate students investigate chemicals in a laboratory in the city of Xiwangzhuang, city of Zaozhuang, China province of Shandong, on December 26, 2023.
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Beijing-despite all the attention to competition between the United States and China in artificial intelligence, the new studies point to the rapid increase of China in biotechnology, especially for drug and agricultural development.
Of the five critical technological sectors, “China has the most immediate opportunity to overcome the United States in biotechnology,” the Harvard Bellfer International Center and International Affairs said Thursday in its launch of a “Index of Critical and Emerging Technologies”, which covers AI, Biotechnology, Semiconductors, Space and Quantum.
While the United States remains the leader in the five, “the close gap of the United States-China [in biotech] He suggests that future developments could quickly change the global power of power, “according to the report.
The evaluation echoes the growing concerns in Washington. In fact, the United States National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology reached a more urgent tone in an April report, citing two years of research.
“There will be a moment of chatgpt for biotechnology, and if China arrives first, it doesn't matter how fast we run, we will never update,” said the Bipartisan Commission of Congress in the report, referring to the transformative chatbot published by OpenAI based in the United States.
“Our Act window is closing. We need a two -track strategy: make the United States innovate faster and slow down China,” the commission said. It recommends that the United States government spend at least $ 15 billion in the next five years to support the national biotechnology sector.
The Chinese biotechnology industry has evolved to the point that American and European pharmaceutical giants in recent months have spent billions to acquire medicines developed by China that could treat cancer if they are marketed with regulatory approval. In March, the British pharmaceutical giant Astrazeneca announced that it will invest $ 2.5 billion in a research and development center in Beijing.
The Harvard Belferlo center said that China's biotechnology strengths come from their “domain in pharmaceutical production and manufacturing”, in addition to having more human talent than the United States
China also has a “more flexible regulatory regime and the ability to get things faster,” said Cynthia Y. Tong, one of the Harvard report authors, CNBC in an interview on Thursday. He pointed out that the United States tends to have a longer approval process, as well as a more prolonged research and development period.
And just when China is developing its biotechnology sector, the reports of the American Biotechnology Center for Cambridge and Boston are revealing empty dismissals and laboratories.
A great strategy
China has long used several years and preferential state plans to encourage the development of key technologies. Biotechnology is no different, gaining high -level support in 2007.
“Currently, the United States government does not have an intentional and intentional biotechnology strategy, while China is gaining ground thanks to its initiatives led by the aggressive and carefully coordinated state,” said the United States Security Commission.
The concern is that just as Chinese restrictions in rare earths begin to hit car manufacturers, Chinese domain in biotechnology could become another form of influence for Beijing over the United States and other countries.
“The probability that there is cooperation [between the] The United States and China on anything are very low, somehow less likely in biotechnology and AI “due to the Congress report, said Eric Rosenbach, director of the defense, emerging technology and strategy program at the Belfer Center in Harvard. He was head of personnel of the United States Department of Defense from 2015 to 2017.
Wait for more pressure from the United States over China.
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It remains to be seen what would mean in practice for companies, although some say that the future of biotechnology development is inherently global.
Insilic Medicine, a startup that uses AI to reduce drug discovery costs, is based on a global team distributed by China, North America and the Middle East, according to its founder and CEO Alex Zhavorsonkov. On Tuesday, the company announced with a document in Nature Medicine that was the first to see successful clinical tests with a medication discovered with AI.
While Insilic's work usually occurs in Canada and Abu Dhabi, chemical tests and experiments are carried out in China, said Zhavorsonkov, and added that the head of clinical development is in Boston. He declined to comment on a marketing timeline in the light of conversations with the regulators.
Other data show that China has surpassed the United States in the number of clinical trials carried out, has seen significant patent growth and has the greatest activity of construction of life sciences in the world.
The capital risk partner or based in China, Yang Fan, who previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry, said he hopes that the best biotechnology companies of the future will navigate the regulations of different countries and use resources worldwide, if they do not benefit from the arbitration opportunities given the different requirements and the cost of entry into several markets.
“The Chinese market is like a great supermarket for anything that can be marketed, AI or biotechnology,” he said, adding that the new new companies in China must be “really good” to highlight. As AI promotes innovation costs, Fan predicts that in biotechnology, “Deepseek's real moment will probably happen in five years.”
