Photo | WBJ file
Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA)
September 10, 2024
McGovern opposition to federal bill targeting Wuxi Biologics fails to stop House passage
Photo | Eric Casey
Workers on the roof of the under-construction of the Worcester WuXi Biologics facility in June.
Despite a late effort by Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) to stop what he described as a weak piece of legislation, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 306-81 to pass the BIOSECURE Act, a bill seeking to limit Chinese companies like WuXi Biologics ability to do business in the United States.
WuXi, which is planning on opening a $300-million biomanufacturing facility at The Reactory business park in Worcester, is one of several companies specifically listed in the legislation. The bill aims to protect American’s health data and national security by placing restrictions on foreign life science firms deemed to have close ties with governments deemed to be adversarial to American interests.
If passed by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by President Joe Biden, the legislation would block certain foreign firms from accessing U.S. federal funds and prevent American companies from using these firms as manufacturing or trial service providers.
McGovern said the problems the legislation is attempting to address are real, but the bill is fundamentally flawed and would actually hinder the country’s ability to hold China accountable.
“First, naming specific companies will create a ‘whack-a-mole’ situation where entities can change their name and reincorporate to evade sanctions,” McGovern said in a press release issued by his office on Monday. “Second, it’s totally wrong to call out specific companies without any formal investigation or interagency process — that might be how they do things in the PRC, but this is the United States of America where we ought to have a thorough, independent investigation. Finally, a bill of this magnitude should have gone through the Rules Committee, where we could have worked to amend it to fix these problems and make it a better bill.”
Despite McGovern’s request for a pause to allow for more vetting of the companies mentioned in the legislation, the bill passed with wide bipartisan support, moving it on to the U.S. Senate.
While some in the biotech industry have expressed concern the bill could add even more pressure to America’s medical supply chain, bipartisan support for the bill is expected in the Senate, according to life science news site BioSpace.
Eric Casey is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.
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