Biotech booms in China
nature.comA couple of years back there was a paralyzed guy who went to China and got stem cell injections and was able to walk again. He did an AMA on reddit and the whole thing was full of people gaslighting him that he wasn't really paralyzed, or it wasn't really permanent, or he wasn't really healed, etc. Then we did it in the U.S a couple years later and claimed we're the first. Gibson's observation that "The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed" applies here.
Do you have the link by any chance? This doesn't surprise me at all since there's a vicious cycle of China-bashing-gets-eyeballs leads to random-trolls-enjoy-China-bashing.
Some of the worst trolls just love harassing founders (esp. female founders) with 10-things-I-hate-about-China to derail conversations about their startup or their product or their journey to product-market-fit.
Unfortunately, some founders will then see any valid criticism of their methods and/or business practices and frame it as China-bashing. It's bad for everyone, including investors and the world at large, and I really wish the racist nonsense would stop.
One of the privileges of being a U.S.-based founder is internationally, no one asks you to answer for the actions of Uber, Exxon, or pharma bro as though all companies in the U.S. came from one homogenous mass.
I'm not talking about criticisms of a particular company when it's the one being discussed. Should Theranos be criticized for their own failings? Yes. Should every U.S. startup be suspected of being similar because of another company's actions because in a population of 300M, someone else did a thing? You tell me...
I wouldn't mind it if someone pressed me about those companies, Uber can absolutely be managed on the local government level, and the other bad stuff that these big companies do is within the range of activism. It's not 100% my responsibility, but there's probably at least a 1 a few zeroes after the decimal.
Secondly, when one company gets away with something in the US, we have a fairly good reason to believe that other companies could get away with something similar. So, if I were a person in any country (even the US), and I needed to decide whether or not I could trust a US company not to do something to me, legal precedent in the US would actually be very relevant.
To make this concrete, I bet Europeans have become rightfully wary by now about the data privacy implications of banking/shopping or otherwise making an account with US business.
Thing is, the Chinese companies who do shady things absolutely get punished. Not just slap-on-the-wrist fines, but jail time and sometimes death penalty. Legal precedent is not why legit founders get harassed for being Chinese.
We're not talking about well-thought-out questions about legal precedence, but random trolls calling their products 'cheap Chinese knock-offs' even when they are original, and even in cases where it's a similar version to something, if it's made in the U.S.A., we call that "private label" or "white label." Or "generics."
I agree. I mean, we shouldn't treat all Chinese startups suspect because of shady practices by Baidu and the PLA. Though that the PLA was involved in that medical scam a few years back does make the whole government as suspect. Baidu also didn't get much punishment, they pretty much got away with it.
This does not seem good.
The world has never really reconciled the biological and chemical atrocities that went on in Asia during WWII and since, like they have in Europe. The Japanese used chemical gas attacks (munitions of unexploded gas are still found in China today) and did live vivesections on prisoners, amputating their appendages until there was nothing left. Hitler’s SS thought the atrocities so bad in China they asked for permission to intervene at several points. I doubt China has forgotten any of this, as they are expanding funding by several orders of magnitude into research on Japanese WWII atrocities.
To the north, Russia supposedly developed a type of chemical weapon even more powerful than nerve gas at one point in the 70’s. After the Cold War, while everyone was worried about nuclear weapons, Soviet bio and chemical scientists were easily available for hire and research. The Japanese cult that dumped Sarin into the Tokyo subway in 1996 had gotten far towards procuring many nerve agents as well as biological agents this way (developing powder to spread live agents that survived for weeks proved too difficult though).
Everyone talks about nuclear weapons, but biological, and to a lesser degree chemical, weapons have been under the radar for so long, governed by treaties that intellectually are still in 1918, that this needs to be looked at very seriously.
I can see your concern, but when was the last time you see China screwed the world up? And, to be honest, I'd never imagine China revenge and send 731 unit-like troops to Japan and do the same live-body experimentation. In history, China sent rescue team to Japan during Kantō Great Earthquake of 1923. And many parents raised children left by Japanese invaders back in 40-50s
Actually, this isn't what the article is about at all, though I can see how you would go this direction from the title alone.
The article discusses academic labs as well as biotech companies openly hiring people from all over the world, and publishing their findings in journals. It talks about curing diseases, drug discovery, the lack of availability in China of some medications, and the career incentives for taking your biologist career to China. These are researchers publishing findings that everyone can read (modulo paywalls from some scientific publishers).
What this article is about: potentially taking a research job in China as a biologist (as a reader of Nature).
What this article is not about at all: shadowy military labs working on weapons.
Excerpt: "Just a decade ago, when China-born scientists with overseas experience began returning to the country, lured by their homeland’s fast growth and growing financial means, they found a drug industry dominated by generics. Undeterred, they got busy building the infrastructure for an industry capable of drug discovery and development, buoyed by substantial government support and a thriving economy."
Isn't it possible that less regulation can help propel research, for "good" goals? I think that in 2018, novel medical applications would be far more profitable than a biological weapons, and in the end of the day, that's what matters to companies.
For example, I'm not sure that in USA it would be possible for a terminally ill patient can opt-in to a dangerous/risky/experimental new form of treatment, while it could save thousands of others if successful.
Even if the patient themselves agrees to the experimental treatment, but then dies, maybe even in a gruesome manner, is it still possible for the patient's family to sue the biotech startup for large sums of money?
I feel you are reading too much infowars. If anything, China is using biotech to save and extend lifes not terminating them. Why would you assume something like that by default?
Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.
At the same time, it seems like for biotech to have an explosion akin to the last fifty years explosion of computer technology, one would have to find a way to well and truly automate the processes involved. Last I looked, a vast amount of research is very much by hand, injecting drug into animal by hand, putting liquids in beakers by hand etc.
And part of it is living creatures are all different, and not just different in the two rocks on a beach or two toys out of a cheap mold are different. Living creatures, even two instance of the same creature, have functioning subsystems that function differently. And this is a multi-dimensional thing [1] . Custom tailored therapies attempt to take this into account but so far seem to have generally failed. I would speculate this is because humans have more than two or dimensions of difference between, even in subsystems like the immune system.
Edit: using AI to combine information on these systems that seem intractable in themselves also sounds promising - still many problem there also.
[1] Biochemical Individuality, Roger J. Williams
> Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.
Relevant excerpt: "Innovent is hunting for employees who have worked in countries such as the United States, where the drug industries are more mature and people have had greater experience of overseeing the development of innovative drugs (see ‘What recruiters want’). “Ten per cent of our team are from overseas,” says Yu. “Returnees have first-hand experience with how drugs are developed and regulated in the United States.” This type of foreign experience will become increasingly important. In July, China became a member of the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH), signalling its intentions to mould its regulatory system in the shape of the ICH’s founding members: the United States, the European Union and Japan."
> Well, it seems logical that biotech would boom in a country with less regulation than the US.
If that was the case, biotech would be booming from the congo to nepal.
Biotech is booming in china because they have the resources ( money, people and infrastructure ).
Come on, any comment like mine above has an implicit "all else being equal" in it. I didn't say that to describe some absolute formula but to contextualize my later remarks.
And my point is that you are just offering simplification that has no merit. It's a cheap ploy I expect from silly journalists, not on HN. Regulation isn't why there is a biotech boom. As I stated, it's money, people and infrastructure.
Point 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
Point 2: There's no country with more money and infrastructure than the US. The only advantage would be more people. And I doubt China has more of the people needed in Biotech research than the US which still attracts the brightest of the world through it's academic system.
So there must be something else. And I think lack of regulation might be a good enough reason. Kind of like how Hollywood boomed after they pirated all the hardware whose patents could only be enforced on the east coast at that time.
> Point 2: There's no country with more money and infrastructure than the US.
Except our money and infrastructure is going into other sectors. China has chosen to direct their resources into this sector. Simple as that.
> Kind of like how Hollywood boomed after they pirated all the hardware whose patents could only be enforced on the east coast at that time.
Hollywood boomed when money, people and infrastructure was directed to it. It was a conscious decision made by the elites. There are tons of regulation in hollywood. It's still booming. Using your logic, hollywood should be a ghost town. Ironically, your example proves you wrong.
http://www.history.com/news/the-renegade-roots-of-hollywood-...
Hollywood didn't start as elites, they started escaping them.
Here's something to add to the discussion. China was the first nation to approve a gene therapy for use in Humans. I don't know if it is effective or not.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt0104-3 (over a decade old)
The same reason they're the first to work with CRISPR in humans, despite the US having a formerly vast R&D lead.
It's because they're fundamentally a lot less concerned about killing people in the process. There's a reasonable debate to be had on whether the US is too concerned with the risk aspect of making progress on biotech.
> fundamentally a lot less concerned about killing people in the process
That's rather flippant, and I'd like to provide a counterpoint. Some neuroscience researchers held a town hall discussion in a major US city and also in a major Chinese city (on two different occasions) about bioethics, and one of the topics discussed was whether it was morally right or wrong (in the case of IVF) to screen for IQ, assuming we had reliable markers. So, same parents, no edits, but out of N embryos, instead of randomly selecting one, you choose one that's likely to be the smartest. Assuming it works reliably, is that wrong?
The U.S. audience was split approx. 50/50, with most of the objections about how it was going against God's will, or that it was "unnatural." The Chinese audience was all for it, and expressed surprise that the U.S. audience was split. Because if you could, and the technique was reliable, why wouldn't you?
Sometimes, it's useful to take a second look at our cultural biases.
On the other hand, the accepted use of selective gender abortion (where the problem made the male/female ratio out of wack especially in rural areas IIRC) in China versus the controversialness of abortion being legal in the USA (re: the persistence of attempts to limit access but observing the minimal literal interpretation of Roe v. Wade) might explain a willingness to let people make choices in China over the USA. Where else are you going to read that!?
> might explain a willingness to let people make choices in China
Annoying things I sometimes hear from relatives during family re-unions:
* Is it true that abortion isn't legal in the U.S.? (Of course, it's allowed, but not in all places, and ... it's complicated.)
* How come people don't understand that climate change is real? Is it because creationism is taught in schools? (Well, it's not like that in all places...)
* So did those comments from Trump become public before or after the election? People must have felt duped that they voted for this kind of person, right? (Actually, those came out before the election. I have no words. ::shakes head::)
Things I might ask them that are annoying:
* I thought gender-selection abortion is illegal. What's with the ratio? (Ugh. Country-people* and their backwards attitudes about gender. You'd think that top-down mandated equal-work-for-equal-pay for a generation would have changed a few things. At least city people have reasonable attitudes.) Yeah, so how are they able to do it? (Never underestimate what a determined Chinese person will figure out how to accomplish.)
* Wait, I thought country people expect their daughters to venture into manufacturing hubs to be breadwinners for the whole family? (Yeah, exactly. They totally baby the boys.)
(Country-people is the closest thing to a racial slur I've heard in China. The amount of prejudice I hear it uttered with me makes me quite uncomfortable.)
Gender abortion isn't legal in China. In fact, they aren't allowed to tell you the sex of our kid. When we did our first comprehensive ultra-sound at UFH Beijing, the technician couldn't say anything but hinted to my wife that we were having a boy. Oh well...
The point is that gender selective abortions are absolutely not legal in China. However, it is difficult to tell why you are aborting, and it is easy to look at your ultra sound pictures and tell.
(Anyways, our son is great despite me wanting a girl!)
The nongminren might have a different outlook, but in the cities girls are perfectly acceptable and welcomed.
It sounds like you're implying China is colder and less humane.
You're reading that meaning, I'm only reciting the facts imperfectly as I may recall them. I could add a bit about how religiosity (Catholicism/evangelicalism) imposes rather arbitrary (to an outsider) limits to medical care/research (stem cell funding research partially blocked by NIH/abortion and sexual education eliminated in favor of useless abstinence guidance to USA and the rest of the world under GOP) in the USA but that seemed to add politics/religion judgement. The end result of those policies seems less humane - though some people judge policy by the policy without regard for outcome, and other people judge policy solely by outcome.
I don't think that that is a counterpoint.
If anything it supports the previous comment.
China has one big advantage vs the US when it comes to future innovation potential in biotech: a large cohort of talented young professionals being trained in drug discovery and development
Big pharma organizations in the US and Europe have been cutting r&d workforces for years, and most small biotech startups that are filling the innovation gap hire execs with 20+ years of experience to design and manage the research and outsourcing the actual work to china. Wuxi, a large contract research org in china, employs like 1-2,000 discovery chemists. I think Pfizer employs maybe 100
With the aging baby boomer populations of the UN Security Council it is going to be an interesting next couple of decades. So much brain power will be devoted to global health.