Former ambassador: China is winning the biotech race. Patent reform is how we catch up

The United States is at risk of losing one of the most important technology races of the 21st century: biotechnology. A 2025 report from a bipartisan, congressionally chartered commission warns that China is closing in on a win, and the United States has only a narrow window to respond.

The report, released by the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, offers dozens of recommendations, ranging from increasing federal investment and expanding domestic manufacturing to reducing reliance on Chinese suppliers and improving interagency coordination. But one issue receives too little attention. If the United States wants to compete, it must restore trust in the intellectual property rights that enable inventors to turn bold ideas into revolutionary products.

Patents make high-risk innovation financially viable. They allow startups to protect their discoveries, attract capital, and grow. Without reliable patent rights, promising research gets shelved — or picked up and advanced abroad.

This isn’t theoretical. The United States led past waves of innovation — like the explosion of biotech startups after the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 and the 19th-century surge of invention that brought us the telephone and automobile — precisely because it backed inventors with clear, enforceable IP rights.

In biotech, the stakes are higher. The field is transforming how we treat disease, grow food, and manufacture everything from chemicals to advanced materials. And with artificial intelligence accelerating discovery, the pace is exponential. As the Commission notes, tools like AlphaFold from GoogleDeepMind can now model hundreds of millions of protein structures in days, a task that once took years.

China saw this future coming. For more than two decades, it has treated biotechnology as a national strategic priority, pouring money into research, building vast biomanufacturing capacity, and acquiring foreign IP through both legal and illicit means.

Today, Chinese firms produce many of the ingredients U.S. drugmakers rely on. According to the Commission, nearly 80% of American drugmakers depend on Chinese contractors for part of their supply chain.

In a crisis, that kind of reliance could leave Americans without access to critical medicine. The Commission outlines a scenario in which Chinese researchers develop a breakthrough cancer therapy and withhold it during a crisis over Taiwan.

Supply chains collapse. Doctors ration care. The White House faces an impossible choice: hold the line on foreign policy or secure access to lifesaving medicine.

The situation is fictional, but the threat is real.

It doesn’t stop there. The report warns that if China stays on its current path, it could soon control the biological data, manufacturing platforms, and AI tools driving the next generation of industrial and defense technologies.

When innovation stays on U.S. soil, so do the jobs, data, and supply chains that protect our citizens. If the technologies that define the future are instead developed under adversarial regimes, the United States risks dependence on foreign powers not only for products but for strategic capabilities. Falling behind wouldn’t just cost the United States market share. It would endanger national security and global influence.

The Commission is right to emphasize the need for a stronger domestic biotech sector. But efforts to achieve that goal will fall short unless we fix the foundation that enables innovation in the first place.

That foundation, our IP system, is under serious strain. Over the past decade, court decisions have blurred the boundaries of what qualifies for patent protection — what is “patent eligible” — especially in medical diagnostics, synthetic biology, and AI-enabled research.

And even when patents are granted, protecting them has become harder. A little-known administrative body called the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) lets big corporations repeatedly try to invalidate competitors’ patents, forcing startups into expensive and drawn-out legal battles.

At the same time, a 2006 Supreme Court decision made it harder for courts to issue legal orders called injunctions — which stop infringers from continuing to use others’ inventions — even in cases of clear wrongdoing.

These trends have a chilling effect. Investors hesitate to fund science unless they can count on the underlying IP rights. In biotech, where it can cost billions of dollars and more than a decade to develop a single product, that hesitation can kill entire pipelines of innovation.

The good news is that Congress has tools to change course. Three bipartisan proposals in the House and Senate would help. One bill would restore clarity to patent eligibility standards. Another would reform PTAB procedures to curb duplicative challenges to patents. A third would make it easier for courts to block infringers by issuing injunctions.

Together, these reforms would reduce uncertainty, restore balance, and make the United States a more attractive place to innovate and invest.

We still have significant advantages: world-class research institutions, deep capital markets, and a free market that rewards bold ideas. But as the Commission warns, our lead is slipping — and time is short. To stay ahead in the race for biotech dominance, we need to fix the IP system that makes American innovation possible.