China is quietly taking control of US medicine. We must stop helping it.

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What would it mean if China controlled the supply chain for the medicines keeping Americans alive? That is not a hypothetical question. It is the trajectory we are on — and our own regulatory framework is helping to get us there.

The U.S. government is rewarding pharmaceutical companies for doing business in China. This is not a competitiveness problem or a trade problem. It is a national security problem.

If left unchecked, this model will help China cultivate globally competitive pharmaceutical companies that could eventually rival or surpass American leadership. At that point, the Chinese government would hold outsized influence over the production and distribution of critical medicines. Given China’s track record of using economic leverage for geopolitical gains, it is not difficult to imagine a scenario in which access to life-saving therapies for the American public becomes a bargaining chip.

The U.S. has spent decades building the most innovative biomedical ecosystem in the world. That leadership is now at risk — not from a sudden breakthrough abroad, but from a deliberate, state-directed strategy by the Chinese to dominate the global supply chain for the next generation of medicines.

China has a well-documented playbook for seeking leverage by seizing control of industries it deems strategically vital. We watched it happen with rare earth minerals. We watched it happen with semiconductors. Now, Beijing is applying that same strategy to biotechnology and pharmaceutical development, where the stakes are far higher: American lives.

Here is how the strategy works. China accelerates clinical trials for its biotech companies at speeds three to five times faster than the U.S. standard, long considered the international gold standard for safety and efficacy. That pace is not the result of superior efficiency alone; rather, it reflects a regulatory environment with fewer safeguards, less transparency, and limited independent oversight. The ethical and scientific standards that underpin trust in American medicine are not just hurdles to be cleared — they are essential protections for patients. When those standards are weakened, speed can come at a cost.

The more troubling dynamic is that Western capital and expertise are fueling — and funding — this system. Western companies and investors, incentivized by lower costs and faster timelines, are increasingly conducting early-stage research, particularly Phase I and II clinical trials, in China. In doing so, they are not only outsourcing critical work but also transferring valuable intellectual property, operational know-how, and scientific talent to a strategic adversary.

Even more concerning, our own regulatory framework may be inadvertently encouraging this trend. The Food and Drug Administration has permitted pathways that allow companies to use Chinese clinical data to support drug development in the U.S. The current system risks creating a perverse incentive: conduct early trials in a lower-cost, lower-standard environment abroad, then bring the data back to accelerate approval at home — to skip the line and reduce the cost. And the FDA, following its own rules, accepts this.

As a former member of Congress who spent years as the most senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, including as its chairman of the Health Subcommittee, I understand the pressures that drug developers face, and I have enormous respect for the scientists working to bring new treatments to patients. I am also a physician who wants to see cures in the hands of doctors and hospitals to get treatments and cures to patients. I spent my entire career in Texas and Washington, D.C. dedicated to this cause.

But no one should be under any illusion about what the endgame looks like if we allow this trajectory to continue.

China’s goal is not simply to participate in the global pharmaceutical market — it is to dominate it. To build a generation of Chinese pharmaceutical companies that are world-class competitors, funded in part by American dollars and built on know-how and innovation transferred from American scientists. Once that infrastructure is mature, China will control the supply chain for medicines that American patients depend on.

Therefore, three actions are needed. First, the FDA and Congress should examine how FDA policies may perversely incentivize the offshoring of early-stage clinical research. Transparency requirements around foreign clinical data should be enhanced, and standards must be rigorously enforced to ensure all data used in FDA submissions meets the highest ethical and scientific benchmarks.

Second, the Treasury Department and Congress should consider targeted measures to discourage the transfer of sensitive biomedical knowledge to countries of concern —  refining outbound investment rules and increasing scrutiny of partnerships involving critical technologies. We acted on Huawei. We acted on TikTok. We must act here too.

Third, we need to reinvest in domestic infrastructure that made American biomedical innovation the gold standard — supporting clinical trial capacity at home, and streamlining, but not weakening, regulatory pathways.

We have a narrow window to act. If we fail to address the incentives driving research offshore, we may soon find ourselves dependent on a supply chain we do not control and products we cannot afford to live without.

Michael Burgess, M.D., served from 2003 to 2025 as a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

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pharmaceutical industry

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