The industry's largest biotech trade association is removing WuXi AppTec from its membership roster as it looks to clarify the organization's "strategic direction on national security."
In a press release posted yesterday, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) said it supports the BIOSECURE Act and will work with Congress to progress the legislation. To that end, BIO is working to revoke membership of China-based WuXi AppTec, a “biotechnology company of concern” specifically named in the legislation.
BIO's statement comes in response to a request made by Rep. Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to review BIO’s lobbying on behalf of WuXi AppTec.
Introduced earlier this year, the BIOSECURE Act would prohibit U.S. federal funding (including loans, grants, contracts) in connection with biotech equipment or services provided by Chinese providers named in the legislation, as well as certain other to-be-identified “foreign adversaries.” In addition to WuXi AppTec, Chinese genomics companies BGI Group, MGI and Complete Genomics are also named in the bill.
Back in February, a group of lawmakers called on the administration to investigate WuXi AppTec and its subsidiaries, citing the biotech's "alarming ties to the Chinese military, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP’s human rights abuses." WuXi released a statement in response to the allegations, calling the U.S. legislative initiative "misguided" and claiming it targeted the company "without a fair and transparent review of the facts."
