Investment-Starved Biotech Sector in US Awaits Major Funding Boost to Help It Regain Global Edge
While this sector has been attracting early-stage funding, private investment in biotech and biopharma has been down in recent years.
(Photo: SBR)
TAIPEI, Taiwan, Jul 24, 2025 — The who’s who of the Biotechnology sector took center stage in Taiwan this week to participate in the five-day international conference and exhibition BIO Asia Taiwan.
While the event is touted to be a game changer for Asia Pacific’s Biotechnology sector, the Taiwan-U.S. SMEs Biotech Forum & Business Opportunities Exchange brought together industry leaders to explore new opportunities for collaboration in the biotech sector.
Greater Philadelphia is home to more than 450 biotech R&D and manufacturing firms and 1,200 life sciences establishments, said Bryan Tsao, Manager of Life Science and Healthcare Initiatives at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, while participating in the conference in Taiwan.
Bryan highlighted Philadelphia’s rise as a premier life sciences hub. This kind of a reach-out by the American Biotech sector is an early step in what could become a nation-wide movement to help the sector regain global supremacy and, most importantly, compete with China, which has gone far ahead of the US in this sector.
Among other measures, a major funding boost to infuse life into America’s biotechnology sector is much awaited. While this sector has been attracting early-stage funding, private investment in biotech and biopharma has been down in recent years.
Investment Boost Needed
Several government-led funding schemes in the US have either been temporarily paused or slashed. In addition, the trade war with China, along with the US BioSecure Act introduced last year, has disrupted the Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) landscape. With concerns of further decoupling, uncertainties loom over biotech development and production globally.
Industry experts suggest that biotech companies should not entirely focus on government funding. It is commonly believed that once early-stage companies are established and therapies show signs of efficacy, they could start gaining interest from private investors or venture capital (VC).
In April, a US Commission came out with a report recommending that the government make a $15-billion investment to bolster the country's leadership in the biotechnology sector. As per the report, the funding will also enhance America’s biotech companies and prevent China from taking that lead.
The document, submitted to Congress and made public, laid out a series of proposals to “make America innovate faster, and slow China down.”
“We need a ‘private-public’ partnership for biotechnology, driven by industry in collaboration with government,” the report states. “By coupling supply-side incentives to drive R&D and initial growth with targeted demand-side signals to reduce investment risks, the federal government can unleash private sector capital to drive a world-class biotechnology industry.”
In an endeavor to transform biotech innovations into medicines, the commission also called on Congress to “create simple pathways to market and exempt familiar products from unnecessary regulation.”
Most importantly, the commission expressed concern over an increasing number of licensing deals involving IP from Chinese biotechs. In 2019, about 15 such deals were struck, compared with 33 in 2023, and that number was higher last year. This number rose, considering that Chinese licensing agreements and their threat to US biotech were a hot topic of conversation at last year's JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.
Funding Drought
In its report, the US commission made a recommendation to increase biotech funding. The commission warned that “any smaller amount [than $15 billion] risks hamstringing US innovation and product development.” This comes soon after the Trump administration moved to cut medical research funding distributed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
President Donald Trump proposed to cap the indirect cost rate of NIH grants at 15 percent, but following resentment from scientists and a lawsuit from the attorneys general of 22 states and a consortium of medical institutes and universities, the funding cuts have been temporarily blocked by a district judge. Meanwhile, some NIH-funded scientists working on mRNA technologies or studying vaccine hesitancy have also seen their grants flagged or cancelled.
The report also emphasizes that “America’s greatest strength has always been its people,” and called on Congress to “ensure” that federal agencies retain skilled employees who have national security and biotechnology expertise.
“We must also strengthen our domestic biotechnology workforce and sustain the pipeline of talent, both at home and from abroad,” the NSCEB wrote.
We need a ‘private-public’ partnership for biotechnology, driven by industry in collaboration with government.
Inputs from Saqib Malik
Editing by David Ryder
