The US Senate’s Homeland Security Committee passed a bill on Wednesday to bar contracts with Chinese biotech firms such as BGI Group, MGI, and Complete Genomics, as part of Washington’s broader efforts to limit Chinese companies in the medical field under the guise of national security.
Although the bill is far from becoming law, its aim is to prevent US federal agencies and the government from engaging with these Chinese companies.
US Senator Bill Hagerty claimed that firms like BGI and WuXi AppTec, which receive significant subsidies, are attempting to dominate the US biotech market while gathering sensitive medical data from millions of Americans for potentially harmful purposes.
BGI Group responded, expressing support for protecting Americans’ data but arguing that the bill’s attempt to drive them out of the US is unlikely to protect the data, as they do not have access to it.
The company criticized the bill for potentially limiting competition and consolidating market control in human genome sequencing by picking winners and losers through legislation.
WuXi AppTec disagreed with being labeled a “biotechnology company of concern” by the US Senate, stating that it does not pose a security threat to the US or any other country.
Meanwhile, Wuxi Biologics (Cayman) Inc. clarified that it is not a subsidiary of WuXi AppTec Co. and does not engage in human genomics or collect human genomic data in any of its businesses. The company emphasized that it poses no national security risk to the US or any other country.
