Caixin Explains: How China Is Overhauling Regulations on Genetic Resources

Amid rising global competition, the government moves to lift restrictions threatening to strangle the biotech industry

China’s burgeoning biotech sector is gearing up to compete with global rivals

Faced with rising global competition in the biotech sector, China is overhauling its stringent, decade-old regulatory system covering human genetic resources to encourage development of new medical treatments.

The shift may dramatically alter the global state of play in biotechnology. With the world’s second-largest population behind India and significant ethnic diversity, China has the most comprehensive human genetic resources in East Asia, according to Jin Li, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at Fudan University’s School of Life Sciences.