U.S. badly trails China in lowering barriers to biotech innovation

America’s lead in biotechnology is eroding, and one Florida company’s three-year wait for a routine government stamp shows why, as The Hill’s David Mansdoerfer writes. China already runs more clinical drug trials than the U.S., even as America’s regenerative medicine market alone is projected to hit $90 billion by 2030.

A three-year wait for a signature

Pensacola-based Regenative Labs, which makes therapies from donated birth tissue, needs an FDA certificate to sell its products overseas. Federal law gives the agency 20 days to decide. Three years later, it’s still waiting, watching foreign rivals grab the market share it can’t reach.

“Every delayed decision is a missed opportunity for American workers, domestic manufacturing, and the homegrown companies developing the next generation of medical innovation,” writes Mansdoerfer, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and adjunct professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.

According to Mansdoerfer, America isn’t losing the biotech race for lack of ingenuity — it’s losing because its own regulators won’t get out of the way.

Related on the SLP

The next front in the U.S.–China trade war: Beijing’s control of life-saving medicines? PEW study: The sick state of American health information

Convinced COVID shots cause widespread harm, Kennedy plans federal initiative to incentivize doctors to report alleged injuries

Should we be afraid of our food?

5 deaths, 1,000 reported cases: These horrific numbers underestimate the consequences of the anti-vax movement

Related on the SLP Viewpoint: Could the U.S. become dependent on China to develop critical new genetic and drug therapies?

Read the original article here