An Expert from GeoVax (GOVX) Discusses how China may be Poised to Overtake the US as the World Leader in the Industry.
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John Crowley, president and CEO of Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), spoke before the US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee ahead of the BIO-Europe convention in Vienna, Austria, that took place earlier this month. During his address, Crowley painted a dire picture of the race between the US and China for supremacy in biotechnology, illustrating China as a formidable foe poised to take the lead.
“China is leveraging its position to manipulate pharmaceutical supply chains, control data flows, and appropriate intellectual property,” Crowley said. “These actions threaten not only US competitiveness, but also the health security of our allies and trading partners.”
GeoVax CEO, David Dodd, spoke with BioProcess Insider about the rivalry between the two global leaders and the progress China has made in biotechnology manufacturing that has positioned it for success.
The Chinese offensive
China has pursued global leadership in biotechnology for many years and has made tremendous headway in the past decade. According to Dodd, although the US has retained a leg up in drug discovery, it’s losing ground to China in manufacturing and clinical trials. As of today, about 30% of clinical trials start in China, bringing them close to the 35% started in the US. “Their goal is nothing less than manufacturing dominance,” Dodd said. “Much of the [world’s] advanced-stage manufacturing supply-chain infrastructure is now China based.”
As a clinical-stage vaccine developer that works with contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), GeoVax has seen China’s strides firsthand in accelerating approval timelines and enabling access to broad patient populations. The country has established a major presence at global industry events to the point of drawing buzz from other participants. “Half of China seemed to be in Vienna for BIO-Europe,” Dodd said about November’s event.
Dodd added that while the US is “second to none” in science, “we don’t have a strong industrial policy that ties in domestic biomanufacturing, platform diversification, and workforce resilience” that would cement the country’s competitive edge against China.
Battling back
But despite the warning signs, the US has made strides to keep pace with China and maintain a strong manufacturing infrastructure in 2025. In only the past couple months pharma giants AstraZeneca and Merck broke ground on facilities in Virginia while Fujifilm opened a cell-culture manufacturing site which will support Johnson & Johnson.
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And last year, the government brought the BIOSECURE Act before the US House of Representatives, which was envisioned to restrict certain named Chinese biotechnology companies (including giants WuXi Biologics and WuXi Apptec) from receiving funding from the US government. Proponents of the Act stated that it was necessary to protect US companies from having sensitive data about their intellectual properties transferred to authorities in Beijing. And although that Act passed the House with bipartisan support, it has remained dormant since it was left off the US Defense Bill at the end of the year. Alex Heeley, managing partner of De Facto Communications, even told BioProcess Insider earlier this month that BIOSECURE is now “dead in the water.”
Dodd didn’t dispute the idea that the BIOSECURE Act may no longer remain viable in its current form, but he believes the general guiding principles behind it will return to play. “Maybe it will have different title. Maybe it will be dressed up a little bit differently,” he said, citing important strategic benefits to the country. If a version of BIOSECURE is finally passed, it will force “companies to map their supply chains and pivot toward trusted US manufacturing.”
In the meantime, concerns about working with China have influenced GeoVax’s own decisions in choosing a CDMO. Dodd said that a well-regarded Chinese company offered vaccine-production services using a platform that is currently outside the capabilities of any US-based companies. Instead of signing with that company, which would have led to expedited production, GeoVax chose a different route. “From a fiscal standpoint, it would have made more sense to have gone with the Chinese firm, because they were willing to lose money and undercut everybody.”
In the near term, GeoVax is working with a firm in France that will complete production in 2026 ahead of clinical trials planned for next year. And in the long term, GeoVax plans to establish US manufacturing, which Dodd said is most likely to happen within the next three to five years.
Self-inflicted wounds
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as head of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he brought with him a history of vaccine skepticism that Senate Democrats argued made him unfit for the position.
Although Dodd emphasized the importance of working with the leaders who are in place regardless of political alignment, he said that rhetoric espoused by and about political figureheads such as Kennedy is inherently harmful.
“The uncertainty that has been created has had a very negative, detrimental impact on the investment community,” Dodd said, adding that experts widely discussed the topic both at BIO-Europe and at World Vaccine Congress Europe 2025 that took place last month in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He added that investors that would otherwise be interested in supporting the industry are turning to alternative opportunities, leaving important vaccine and biologics programs financially stranded. “That has a detrimental effect, especially if you’re a pre-revenue clinical-stage program.”
US government funding cuts have also taken their toll on innovation, which impacted GeoVax in April 2025 when its Project NextGen award from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) was terminated by the HHS, hindering the organization’s efforts toward supporting COVID-19 vaccine diversification. “We had received an award that was valued at $400 million, and that program has gone away.” Five other companies also lost awards.
Government cuts and anti-vaccine rhetoric amount to preventable setbacks that might enable China to slip ahead of the US in biotechnology. And according to John Crowley, that could happen sooner than later. “John Crowley recently said we could be surpassed by China within two years,” commented Dodd. “Who knows what the actual time period is, but I would say it’s been building. It’s now foreseeable, if we don’t focus.”
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