MP retweetledi
This will not end well for the US biopharma industry. The BMS/Hengrui deal announced yesterday includes co-commercialization which is the last piece after manufacturing and discovery that has not been present in Chinese drug cos.
If we want to maintain our lead in US biotechnology we need to:
1. Drop cost and increase speed of phase 1 clinical trials in US. Good progress here recently from @US_FDA
2. Drop cost and increase speed of the lab work that drives product development in therapeutics. At @ginkgo we believe you do this via autonomous robotic labs, but I'll take anything that works -- right now discovery is 1/3 the cost in China as bench scientists there are 1/3 the labor cost.
3. Improve IP protections so its not too easy to fast-follow a biologic -- often the ultra-risky first clinical work on a new target is done in US and Chinese startups are fast-following and easily designing around patent limitations on protein sequences.
4. Leverage the fact that US consumers are paying for 70% of the profits in the biopharma industry to put in place the sort of trade restrictions we use to protect domestic automotive, defense, AI, and other strategic industries. Easy way to get started here is add biotech to the COINS Act list of strategic technologies alongside chips, AI, quantum, drones, etc.
We need to do it now. Democracies should control genetic engineering - it's not more complicated than that.
"Hengrui, which has the option to co-develop certain assets and participate in commercialization globally, gains access to some of the fruits of BMS’ drug discovery engine, plus its partners’ global R&D, regulatory and commercial capabilities."
fiercebiotech.com/biotech/bms-in…
English
