Beijing’s global pharmaceutical push is following a playbook seen in rare earths, semiconductors and electric vehicles, US lawmakers said on Wednesday, as concerns grow over the United States’ reliance on Chinese drug ingredients.
“China is cornering the market on our medicines – from the supply of generic drugs that Americans depend on every day, to the cutting-edge biotech pipeline that will determine who leads medicine in the years and decades ahead,” said John Moolenaar, the chair of the House Select Committee on China.
The hearing, titled “From the Science Lab to the Medicine Cabinet: How China is Cornering the Market on Our Medicines,” examined the United States’ growing supply chain dependence on China’s pharmaceutical industry.
Florida Republican Neal Dunn on Wednesday accused China of executing a deliberate, long-term strategy to move up the pharmaceutical value chain.
“They’ve done this with rare earths, solar energy, batteries, electric vehicles, all these critical sectors they dominate and they subsidise,” he told the hearing, adding, “they move up the supply chain until they own the whole stack of the supply chain”.
China’s ageing population and global expansion are behind projections that the pharmaceutical industry’s revenue would rise by 50 per cent between 2024 and 2030. According to UBS estimates, the country’s drug and medical device businesses were forecast to generate more than US$2.1 trillion in revenue by 2030.
Concerns have grown in recent years that China could dominate the global pharmaceutical industry, particularly due to the US reliance on Chinese producers of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
Marta Wosinska, who was a witness at Wednesday’s hearing, argued that some widely cited statistics overstate the US’ reliance on Chinese active ingredients.
Estimates of US reliance on Chinese APIs vary widely, with a 2025 Brookings Institution report putting the figure at roughly a quarter of drug volume sold in the US. Wosinska, who wrote this report, noted the variety, saying, “some sources will say it’s eight per cent and some will say it’s 90 per cent”.
The senior fellow in economic studies at the Centre on Health Policy at Brookings reiterated she thought the figure was closer to 25 per cent, noting that it varies by therapeutic class. “We definitely have significantly higher exposure for antibiotics than for a lot of other drugs,” she told the hearing.
Zach Nunn, a Republican from Iowa, also echoed concerns about China’s growing role in the pharmaceutical sector, especially as it appears to be following a trajectory similar to that of other industries.
“I think we all recognise when China starts to dominate in any sector, whether it’s semiconductors, whether it’s innovation, critical minerals, it becomes an unfair advantage they gain, particularly when it comes to health care and biotech,” he said.
“The United States becoming reliant on China for key ingredients of our generic medicines and the infrastructure that drives drug innovation is a loss for everybody.”
These concerns have already prompted action by Washington lawmakers. Moolenaar sent a letter to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in January, urging immediate action by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) on a Chinese pharmaceutical company’s controlling investment in FastWave Medical.
In the letter, he warns that the investment could threaten US national security, undermine American medical innovation and patient access to vital medical devices.
FastWave Medical is a US medical device company that develops laser‑based intravascular lithotripsy technology.
Meanwhile, Ro Khanna, the top Democrat on the panel, said the US must acknowledge how the Trump administration’s policies are shaping the US’ reliance on China.
“Pharmaceutical manufacturing and drug development depend on long-term investment, scientific research, and stable economic policy,” he said.
“This administration’s cuts to federal agencies that support research and regulatory oversight weaken the foundation of American pharmaceutical leadership.” -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
