By Karen Freifeld
(Reuters) -A new version of a bill that would restrict U.S. business with certain Chinese biotechnology companies including WuXi AppTec and BGI would give U.S. companies until 2032 to end work with the firms, extending the amount of time to find new partners.
The latest Biosecure Act also adds WuXi Biologics to a list of biotech companies of concern, according to a copy seen by Reuters. The other companies on the list are BGI, MGI, Complete Genomics and WuXi AppTec.
The revised bill will be introduced on Friday and a U.S. House of Representatives committee is expected to decide next week whether to move the bill forward, according to a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability spokesperson.
The committee markup, expected Wednesday, is a procedural step in the process to the bill’s possibly becoming law. A similar Senate bill was approved by a committee there in March.
The bills are designed to keep Americans’ personal health and genetic information from foreign adversaries.
A spokesperson for WuXi Biologics said they had not yet seen the revised bill and could not comment. The other companies listed did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The latest bill “highlights a key vulnerability in our global supply chain and importantly provides a reasonable timeframe for companies to decouple their reliance on China-based biomanufacturing,” John Crowley, president of BIO, an industry association, said in a statement.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Michael Erman)
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