Science Friday - China's booming biotech, from a brain implant to drug discovery

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

In March, China became the first country to approve an invasive brain-computer interface beyond clinical trials. The implant, called NEO, is now available to some patients with limb paralysis due to a spinal cord injury. Ira talks with Wired staff writer Emily Mullin about the significance of this milestone. Plus, brain implants aren’t the only development: China’s entire biotech industry has skyrocketed in recent years. A decade ago, about 8% of new drug molecules were discovered in China. Now it's over 40%. And more clinical trials are now being conducted there than in the U.S. or Europe. Ira talks with health policy researcher So-Yeon Kang, who’s been following the Chinese pharma industry’s meteoric rise. Guests: Emily Mullin is a staff writer at Wired.  Dr. So-Yeon Kang is an Assistant Professor of Health Management and Policy at Georgetown University.  Other episodes you may enjoy: Advances In Brain-Computer Interfaces For People With Paralysis How China Is Driving Down Electricity Costs With Renewables Transcripts for each episode are available within 1-3 days at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, I'm I Refleto, and you're listening to Science Friday. In March, China became the first country to approve an invasive brain computer interface beyond clinical trials. The implant called Neo is made by the Chinese company Neurical Technology. It's now available to some patients with limb paralysis due to a spinal cord injury. So how soon will it be available worldwide? And is this the start of a major new industry? Joining me now to help answer some of the unknowns is Emily Mullen, a staff writer at Wired, who's been covering the brain computer interface industry in China and the U.S.

Welcome to Science Friday. Thanks for having me. So, Emily, just how significant is this milestone for brain computer interface technology? I would say this is a pretty significant milestone, you know, not only for China, but also for the worldwide brain computer interface field. It shows that China has caught up with the U.S. in terms of BCI technology. And it also shows that these devices are commercially viable. Tell me a bit about the implant. Can you describe it for us how it works? Yeah. So as you said, this device is called the Neo. And it doesn't go into the brain directly. it actually rests on top of the brain's protective membrane called the Durhamotter, and it pairs with a soft robotic glove to enable a gripping action for people who have lost the use of their hand.

The system was tested on about three dozen people in trials, and China has now started incorporating it into the country's health systems. so we could see this rolled out soon to patients. How similar is this to other BCIs that other companies are currently developing? Yeah, so one of the companies you might have heard of in the U.S. is Elon Musk's Neurrelink. And Neurlink is developing this coin-sized implant with thin electrode threads that actually reach into the brain tissue. So that's a little bit different than this device that China has just a little bit. approved. Now, there are other companies such as Synchron, for instance, they're based in New York. They are developing a little stent-like tube that actually fits into a blood vessel and is pushed

up through the blood vessels so that it rests actually against the brain. So there are all sorts of designs that are being developed and being investigated for different uses. Yeah, that's interesting. we see a bunch of more similar devices approved in China soon? There are several companies in China that are now developing brain computer interfaces. So I think we are probably likely to see over the next couple of years more approvals like this. The government officially designated brain computer interfaces as a strategic industry and the country's latest five-year plan lists BCI or brain computer interface as one of six key industries that are important to China's future tech competitiveness. So this is China saying, you know,

we are serious about the field. We are investing in it heavily. We're really staking it out as an area we feel like we can be competitive in. And this is an important statement, China saying we have arrived Yeah, absolutely. Here in the U.S., there are a handful of companies that are testing these devices and clinical trials. But that process here in the U.S. is a little bit slower. It seems like there are some talks between the FDA and device companies that are still ongoing, but certainly NeurLink and then Synchron, another company developing a brain computer interface. Those companies are really poised to go into these bigger trials. I think, you know, this will be an interesting test case for not just the U.S., but also globally in terms of how viable this technology

is commercially, but also from the patient perspective, you know, how useful are these devices in everyday life? It's interesting. You say, how useful are these devices in everyday life? What kinds of everyday life applications are we talking about here? Yeah, so most companies are focusing on applications for individuals with paralysis who have lost the use of their limbs. And NeurLink, for instance, they are developing a BCI to allow people to type on a computer, play video games with just their thoughts alone. So these devices, at least right now, are being imagined as an assistive device, tools for people to get back some of their independence. You know, we always hear about stuff that works really well in the laboratory situation, right?

How will we know if it really works out there in the real world for patients? So one of the things about these devices is that most of them have to be calibrated before each use. I have visited a BCI trial participant and actually a field engineer comes to visit him every week and sets up the system so that he's able to use it. He can't actually turn it on and off by himself and he can't do the calibration himself. So I think that's going to be one of the things that is going to need to be figured out in this process of trials and, in the commercial space is, will patients really be able to use them independently? How much are they going to need to rely on somebody else to use a device that's meant to restore independence? Emily Mullen, staff writer at Wired.

After the break, a look into what's driving China's biotech industry boom. Stay with us. Now it's not just China's brain computer interface sector that's growing. the country's entire biotech industry has skyrocketed in recent years. A decade ago, about 8% of new drug molecules were discovered in China. Now it's over 40%. And more clinical trials are now being conducted in China than in the U.S. or Europe. And most recently, Pharma juggernaut Bristol-Meyer Squibb signed a $15 billion deal

with a Chinese company to acquire several early stage drug candidates. Has the Center of Gravity and Biotech moved from the U.S. to China? My next guest has been following the Chinese pharma industry's meteoric rise. Dr. C. Yan Kang is an assistant professor of health management and policy at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Welcome to Science Friday. Thank you for having me. Nice to have you. Tell us what is driving this enormous, growth of the Chinese biotech industry?

That's a great question. And China's rise in biotechnology is not just a random or overnight event. It's the sort of result of more than a decade of coordinated investment in science, research, regulation, and biotechnology industry. And I think it's really a two-part story. First is that the way that the pharmaceutical companies develop drugs has changed a lot. So our traditional image of a big pharma companies is like Pfizer, like a higher army of PhDs from biology or chemistry PhD and run their own lab, discover drugs and patent them, develop the drugs and commercialize them, right? So like a one-stop shop in a model, but it changed a lot.

And they now, of course, do have their own laboratories, but also to search for the neurotruck candidates. So they send this, you know, people to China, Singapore, South Korea to find the premise drug candidates. And second part is, again, like, you know, China's investment in this drug industry and the transformation of their ecosystem toward more innovation from manufacturing. Are there specific parts of the biotech industry where Chinese companies are excelling, so to say? Right.

So China is known for its sort of a factory of the world. concept, right? So the primary supplier of generic drugs, but now they are really doing well in early stage drug development. When you say early stage drug development means that it include the early stage drug discovery and also the pre-clinical research and the phase one and phase two clinical trials. Why are they better at doing that? That's another important area that we need to explore and investigate further. But what you hear a lot is about their speech. and cost. So startup companies, as you can imagine, like in a small startup companies, they run on the very limited funding that they raised from venture capital firms. So they have

limited time and limited amount of money, for example, like a $20 million for 20 months, no, something like that. And time is money, and they have to show the promise within that sort of 20 months of the timeline. And if they fail, then they cannot actually survive because it's kind of binary nature, you know, for the biotech companies, survive or fail. And China now offers very cost-efficient models. Like, it's a lot easier to recruit, you know, the patients in clinical trials. And also they offer sort of very favorable regulatory environment. And also they have built some sort of, you know, very effective clinical trial infrastructure.

So that combination of this pool of patients and efficiency around the clinical trials and also the money involved in that really make attracting their lots of startup companies to run this clinical trials in China. Yeah, so that's an important point. Companies getting additional money from the government, even if they fail at first. Exactly. So how common is it for American or European companies to source early stage drug candidates from China? Increasingly more and more drugs are coming from this Chinese.

companies. So about half of the new drug licensing deals were about these drugs developed in startup companies in China. And also, like, you know, you just mentioned the Bristol-Mar Squips, you know, the recent licensing deal. They signed this licensing agreement with Hengri Pharma in China for about $15 billion for 13 drug candidates across different therapeutic categories. So it's a huge deal, $15 billion for $13.000. Wow. That is something. With the Chinese government willing to fund these companies and with the companies themselves like Bristol-Myers making deals with China, how disruptive could China's assent in the biotech industry be to the global pharmaceutical industry?

That's a million-dollar question, I'd say. It's not more than a million, isn't it? Yeah, a billion-dollar question might be. Yeah. Because that's a million. kind of the topic debated a lot recently. Pharmaceutical companies, so they send people not because the drug is in China, but because

that's where science is, right? Where the innovation is. They want to maximize their profit, also maximize efficiency. They are naturally just pursued the sort of, you know, where the opportunities where the promising candidates are developed. But for the

big picture, like as you mentioned, the global pharmaceutical industry, we don't know, how the other countries and our companies can survive with this intensifying competition. But now we cannot ignore some sort of geopolitical issues. And also we have lots of uncertainty about what did it happen if the majority of trucks are coming from China through this licensing agreements, things like that. And also, we don't have the immediate answer to what would it be the consequence of this on the U.S. pharmaceutical ecosystem and infrastructure and human capital. Yeah. Are we going to see less talent coming to the U.S. and just staying in China to develop these new drugs?

That's an excellent question, too. And for example, previously, when brilliant people came to the United States for their PhDs or training and postdoc fellowship, they tend to stay in the U.S. companies, right? And also U.S. ecosystem. And they re-contributed to the innovation within our country. But now, the China's biofarmacstrac industry and biotech industry itself has the capacity to develop their own talent, and so to retain their talent, and also to feed the next generation of the talents too. That's another area that we need to pay attention to as well. So we might soon see drugs that are created from start to finish in China reaching the U.S. market. I mean, not just American companies buying early stage candidates from Chinese companies. Yes, I think that's a fair concern. Because China, as you know, has this amazing manufacturing facilities and infrastructure. Even though it's currently mostly focusing on generic drugs and down the road, they may want to develop some sort of cell therapies and gene therapies and manufacture them within China.

Then it means that they may just own this entire ecosystem from discovery development to manufacturing and commercialization. to. Could the American companies and the American government see that as a threat to the security of American pharmaceutical industry? Oh, yes. We increasingly see this kind of policy debates of discussions around the role of China and also how to handle this kind of investment going to China from the U.S. And also there are a sort of discussion about, you know, banning some licensing deals with Chinese companies or certain companies in certain markets. But that's not something that any people or the stakeholders in this ecosystem want to see. Because as I mentioned earlier, this is about innovation and science and completely banning or disrupting this sort of, you know, the natural economy and also the economic behaviors that can have sort of unintended consequences on patients' access to needed treatments.

Right. So that approach should be very, very careful. and we want to approach this as a sort of, you know, competitionist perspective, not as sort of, you know, some trade war or any sort of, you know, banning the transactions and what about the price of drugs? Could this drive down the price of drugs if China gets really to be one of the superpowers in the pharmaceutical industry, or would it drive the price up because you might have a monopoly?

In theory, if we obtain the trucks developed in lower cost setting, then we may want to see that the drug actual price lower than in the previous settings, right? But now we don't have any evidence to support any direction. And also, from the manufacturer's perspective, there may not be the motivation for them to lower the price. Because, as I mentioned, Bristol-Myerskips paid $15 billion, right? So it's not, it's no lower than any other deals that they did, made with other American companies, too. So for them, a lowering the Trump price is not, I don't think that it's on their agenda. Is there room then for cooperation between the U.S. and China instead of viewing it as a competition, or is it just how business is done?

Absolutely. So there's lots of, you know, discussion about how to coordinate and harmonize this, regulatory systems and also how to co-develop drugs. So there are ongoing some parallel discussion about this. But in the meantime, we need to pay attention to how we can make this in the U.S. system stronger because this innovation is a sort of long game. And once we lose a sort of resource and infrastructure, it's really hard to rebuild. So what are the kind of consequences and implications of this shift on the U.S.

ecosystem as well as the local economy supporting this bioformatsoc innovation. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you very much. Dr. Suoyang is an assistant professor of health management and policy at Georgetown University in Washington. Before we go, we're working on a segment about AI in the doctor's office, and we want to know, are you a doctor and have you used platforms like open evidence? What do you think about other doctors using AI?

Or are you a patient whose doctor used AI during your care? Please tell us your story and your thoughts at 18774-Syfe-Fry. This episode is produced by Shoshana Bugsbaum. I'm Ira Flato. We'll catch you next time.