Keeping the U.S. Ahead in Biotech

(NewsUSA) - The United States continues to lead in biotechnology investments and remains home to the large majority of the world’s leading biotechnology companies and innovators, but other countries are making great strides as well, according to experts at the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), a bipartisan nonprofit organization.

For example, data show that the People’s Republic of China has ambitions to be the world leader in biotechnology by 2035.

The U.S. is meeting this challenge. Most notably, the White House has supported the launch of the Advanced Research Projects for Health (ARPA-H) and the Congressionally created National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. These two new biotechnology-focused government entities that have come online to develop and strategize U.S. biotechnology leadership.

Experts from SCSP have developed a National Action Plan for U.S. Leadership in Biotechnology. This plan outlines a series of actions that would help preserve U.S. leadership in this essential and strategic sector. The plan is the first in a series that will be published by SCSP in 2023 to focus on the various battleground technologies identified by SCSP in the organization’s report on challenges to U.S. global competitiveness.

The action plan provides a roadmap for biotechnology policy from a national security perspective. The plan involves a coordinated effort among academia, the private sector, and government to establish U.S. leadership in biotechnology through 2030, alongside our allies and partners.

Key recommendations in the plan include:  

Thinking big. Launch biotechnology moonshots to advance fundamental science and technology.

Thinking smart. Align biotechnology commercialization, diffusion, and scale through targeted government incentivization measures.

Thinking collaboratively. Develop new public-private partnerships across the innovation ecosystem that better connect our universities, national labs, and biomanufacturing institutes.

Thinking internally. Build the supporting infrastructure that will allow the United States to tap into biotechnology’s full potential.

Thinking externally. Cultivate, attract, and retain global biotechnology talent in the United States.

Thinking ahead. Secure the inputs for a thriving bioeconomy, such as fermenter capacity and DNA sequencers.

Thinking together. Unite democratic allies and partners competitive advantages through partnerships like biomanufacturing alliances and data-sharing agreements.

Thinking ahead. Finally, the goal of the U.S. should be to “run faster with guardrails to ensure that U.S. investments do not inadvertently aid the biotech advancements of our strategic adversaries counter to our national security interests,” the experts conclude.

For more information, visit scsp.ai.