US innovation leadership is absolutely contingent on full implementation of Bayh-Dole. The aff cedes innovation leadership to China.

The Bayh-Dole Act and U.S. International Life-Sciences Competitiveness

As this report noted in addressing the history and impact of the Bayh-Dole Act, it’s important to reemphasize that the Bayh-Dole Act was introduced, in part, as a response to deteriorating U.S. economic competitiveness in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the face of heightened foreign competition. And while this report has placed the Bayh-Dole Act as one of a suite of policies that have turned the United States into the world’s leader in life-sciences innovation, it’s important to recognize that foreign competition remains intense and that U.S. leadership is not assured, especially if it were to start implementing policies that could undermine America’s leadership position (such as applying Bayh-Dole march-in rights for the purposes of controlling drug prices).

Indeed, a number of economic competitors, including Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, have recently introduced concerted national strategies to enhance their life-sciences competitiveness. In a recent review of efforts by several countries, TEConomy Partners found that, “Although the United States continues to rank first in nearly all measures of innovation, the countries profiled continue to make significant efforts to try to close the gap with the United States.”253 That report continued, “The trends over the past five years continue to suggest that, in all but a few areas, the United States is not keeping pace and is actually losing ground.”254 For instance, according to the OECD, of 25 nations, the United States ranked second from last in inflation-adjusted growth in health research expenditures from 2006 to 2015. Only Italy (-27 percent) was below the United States (-1 percent). In contrast, over that time period, Denmark increased its health research funding by 185 percent, South Korea by 177 percent, Germany by 65 percent, the United Kingdom by 55 percent, and Spain by 32 percent.255

Life-sciences competition from China, in particular, is increasingly fierce. In its “Made in China 2025” plan, the Chinese government identified the life-sciences industry as one of 10 key strategic industries it wants to advance, and the country is investing billions toward that cause. One key way Chinese governments are supporting the industry is by subsidizing research parks and providing venture capital. Indeed, a large number of biomedical industry research parks have recently sprung up, and there were already 111 biological science research parks in China as of 2018. For example, Shanghai’s “Pharma Valley”—a 10-square-kilometer life-sciences hub—is now home to more than 500 biotech companies. Further, China’s Ministry of Science and Technology has committed to building 10 to 20 biomedicine science parks by 2020 with a total output value surpassing 10 billion yuan ($1.45 billion).256 The Chinese government is also investing significant amounts of money in key research areas. For instance, in 2010, the China Development Bank provided a $1.58 billion line of credit to the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), a private genome sequencing center, to buy 128 advanced DNA sequencing machines. The investment made BGI the world’s largest genetic sequencer, accounting for roughly one-quarter of all DNA data sequenced in the world in 2014.257 Further, in 2017, China devoted $9.2 billion to a 15-year Precision Medicine Initiative that seeks to map 100 million human genomes.

The point here is that global life-sciences competition only continues to intensify, and U.S. leadership going forward is no sure thing, especially if it fails to continue supporting the types of policies that have contributed immensely to that leadership. The Bayh-Dole Act represents one of these core policies, and its effectiveness today is as important as it ever has been in underpinning U.S. life-sciences leadership.