China Races to Build Record Biobank to Rival US Drugs Research

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The repudiation has spread:  in the UK, politicians have raised concerns about the use of its biobank data by Chinese researchers and in February the European Union barred Chinese organizations from participating in Horizon Europe, a €93.5 billion ($110 billion)funding program.

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Chinese scientists told Bloomberg News that the restrictions have already interrupted some research, but that the full implications were not yet clear.

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Pursuit of Self-Reliance

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Beijing has equally begun to protect its own nascent databases, passing a biosecurity law in 2020 that placed stricter controls over the collection, storage and overseas transfer of genetic data. 

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China’s efforts in developing an integrated biobank system began later than most other major economies, leaving it heavily dependent on Western data for its recent scientific discoveries, such as ways to predict dementia with a simple drop of blood, drugs to treat strokes and early diagnostic tools for colorectal cancer.  

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Recent progress in biobank infrastructure is underpinned by the Chinese Communist Party’s aggressive pursuit of self-reliance in science and technology, increasingly gaining ground in strategic fields including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, energy and materials science.

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“China wants to achieve a self-reliance of biomedical dataset, as part of China’s efforts achieving what Xi Jinping called holistic security,” said Huang Yanzhong, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. “China doesn’t want to be subject to control by other countries, especially those they have geopolitical tensions with”.

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As a country of 1.4 billion people, China does not lack data. But its biobank system has long been fragmented, with different institutions using varying standards for data collection and storage. Chinese hospitals, universities and government-backed research centers are now in the complex process of collecting, consolidating and digitalizing millions of samples to create a powerful engine for biotech innovation. 

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China’s flagship project, the National Biobank, has grown into one of the world’s largest since launching in Shenzhen in 2016 and Beijing is pushing to make it the biggest. Known in local media as ‘China’s Noah’s Ark,’ it houses 10 million blood and cell samples from humans, animals, plants and marine organisms, and last year began to further integrate 10 biological databases from around the country. 

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“In the age of life science, those who possess abundant genetic resources and the knowledge to understand and use them, hold the advantage, just like land in the agricultural era and energy in the industrial era,” Mei Yonghong, then director of China’s national biobank and a former official from China’s Ministry of Science and Technology, told state media when it opened.

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Likewise, the National Genomics Data Center has more than doubled the total size of its data files and integrated eight major databases from across the country over the past two years.

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The stakes are high. The detailed biomedical data stored in biobanks underpins key frontiers in the global biotechnology race. For example, by analyzing the environmental and genetic drivers of disease, researchers can aid the development of precision medicine which uses a patient’s biomarkers to determine what drugs they are likely to respond to. 

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Around 80% of China’s bioscience still depends on US-based databases, according to a scientist at the government-affiliated Chinese Academy of Sciences, who asked not to be identified because he’s not authorized to speak publicly.The US move to guard some of its most sensitive data is already impacting some colleagues, who have sought workarounds including collaborating with scientists in countries with free access, said the person, who estimates it could take between five and 10 years for China to be able to rely on its own databases. The sentiment in the industry is generally pessimistic, with expectations that the ability to share information will deteriorate further, the person said.