As a result, more U.S. biotech firms are beginning to move parts of their clinical development to China. A Time magazine headline from May 2025 captures what many industry experts have been warning for years: “The US can’t afford to lose the biotech race with China.” This is no longer a hypothetical concern. Data is backing this fear up: US early-stage funding is deteriorating: dropping from $2.6 billion in Q1 to just $900 million in Q2 2025 — the lowest level in five quarters. If this trend continues, it could gradually shift the center of gravity for biomedical innovation abroad. In the long run, this poses risks not only to U.S. biotech competitiveness but also to biosecurity, much like the earlier offshoring of manufacturing supply chains created strategic vulnerabilities.

I'm sure they're still gonna be sitting around with their heads up their asses up in DC whenever even the defense industry regulatory arbitrages itself out of the country.

There's apparently an effort out now to release the FDA's data on the drugs they've blocked over the years, which they keep as a tightly guarded secret. This would be very useful for training AIs, but the FDA rightly fears what will happen when people figure out how many transformative drugs have been denied for bullshit reasons.