China closing in but US leads in biotech quality, commercial reach, survey finds

SAN DIEGO, June 22 (Reuters) – China, which now conducts ‌more clinical drug trials, opens new tab than the U.S., still lags in the quality and commercial reach of its biomedical science, according to a recent survey, opens new tab of senior U.S. leaders in industry and academia.

The poll, conducted by Cure Innovation Index, found that China is seen as the clear leader in two out of six sectors: clinical development and supply ​chain.

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It found that the U.S. leads in moving experimental products through to large-scale production, capital and commercialization and talent. The ​two countries were viewed as tied in the domain of scientific discovery.

“The U.S. is still leading, but confidence ⁠is eroding. Most said they see China as an existential threat,” said Seema Kumar, CEO at Cure, which is an affiliate of investment ​firm Deerfield Management.

Of the 117 respondents, 85% said the U.S. lead will last 10 years or less. The survey findings were presented in San ​Diego on Monday at the annual meeting of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
In recent years, multinational pharmaceutical companies have augmented their pipelines with candidates developed in China, where costs are low, regulation is streamlined and some say government subsidies, opens new tab offer an unfair advantage.

By 2024, the U.S. share of early drug development programs had dropped to around 37% ​from 48%, opens new tab in 2015, while China’s share of the global total rose to over 32% from 8%, according to a study conducted by ​Georgetown University.

Drugmakers are licensing molecules from China for potential new medicines at an accelerating pace, betting they can turn upfront payments of as little as $80 million into ‌multibillion-dollar treatments.
The ⁠trends have alarmed the U.S. government. The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology in a December report, opens new tab warned that “China has systematically built a vertically integrated biotechnology ecosystem that is now in prime position to challenge U.S. leadership.”

US Funding raises Concern

U.S. health officials on Monday announced a program “to restore America’s leadership in clinical trials” through a series of measures designed to speed drug research.

The Biosecure Act, opens new tab, signed into law by President Donald Trump late last ​year, restricts federal agencies’ business dealings ​with non-U.S. biotechnology companies.

“China has ⁠speed, scale, manufacturing, development, execution, and the U.S. is better at scientific quality, talent, some work on the tech transfer, and most important of all, it has the access to the world’s most valuable healthcare ​market,” Kumar said.

“Commercialization is America’s superpower,” she said. “The buyer is in the U.S.”

The U.S. accounted for 53% of the ​global pharmaceutical market, opens new tab ⁠in 2025, up from 49% in 2021, according to Iqvia, which said Europe’s share was steady at 24% while the Asia-Pacific region dipped to 11% from 13%.

The Cure survey’s other major finding, Kumar said, is that rather than competition from China, respondents rated the growing threat of U.S. research ⁠funding cuts ​as the bigger concern.
“The U.S. has all of the right ingredients, but the way ​we have been funding probably needs to change,” Kumar said.

More needs to be done to secure financing at the National Institutes of Health and to modernize the nation’s clinical ​development infrastructure, which has not been addressed since the nearly 50-year-old Bayh-Dole Act, opens new tab, she said.

Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Mark Porter and Bill Berkrot