(NewsUSA)
- The battle for global leadership in biotechnology is not won or lost in a single field, but is spread across areas including supply chains, manufacturing capacity, data holdings, and regulatory speed. The United States still holds the lead over China, but it is narrowing, according to the latest Biotech Scorecard from the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), a nonprofit and nonpartisan initiative with a goal of making recommendations to strengthen America's long-term competitiveness in artificial intelligence.
The SCSP’s Tech Scorecard methodology involves a five-point analysis of elements including Innovation Leadership, Market Ecosystem, Talent Pipeline, Industrial Capacity, and National Leverage.
Although the United States has the lead in Innovation Leadership, Market Ecosystem, and Talent Pipeline, China appears ahead in terms of Industrial Capacity and National Leverage, according to the report.
China has the potential to overtake the U.S. in biotechnology by 2030, strengthened by two decades of deliberate national strategy that is now producing results. By contrast, the American position is “a return on research investments made decades ago, sustained by a capital market that rewards its strongest performers,” according to SCSP’s analysts.
The report focuses on the biopharmaceuticals sector of biotechnology as examples of China’s acceleration in National Leverage and Industrial capacity. Most government funding for biotechnology in the United States goes to basic research.
Unfortunately, a lack of urgency persists in expanding government support to commercialization of drug products, for example. “Approval timelines for drugs entering clinical trials and going to domestic markets are driven by government policy, and can help accelerate, or slow down, the pipeline of innovation,” the SCSP authors emphasize.
Although the United States and China both invest in basic research, China is more active in supporting biotech startups through the process of acquiring capital to build pilot capacity, scale up production, and reach markets, without waiting for a definitive return on these expanded investments. This strategy includes preferential taxation, below-market lending, and direct subsidies. The U.S. tends to leave this aspect of biotechnology development to the private sector.
Looking ahead, as artificial intelligence allows scientists to predict molecular activity, the expensive early stages of drug discovery will likely decrease, and the competitive advantage will shift to testing, manufacturing, and commercializing a promising drug candidate.
“Whether the United States retains its edge depends both on model quality and how quickly it can move a computationally generated candidate through trials, approval, and manufacture before a competitor improves on it,” according to the report.
To read the full report and learn more, visit scsp.ai.