The Surest Protection for American Medicine Is a Stonger America

Executive Director Jennifer Crook opened the Endpoints News China Salon at the Koch Institute at MIT on August 6.

America's medicine supply is a national security asset, and the surest way to protect it is to build strength at home and extend it through trusted allies. Jennifer Crook made that case in Boston to a room of scientists, investors, and executives who have argued supply chains and China policy for years, and had not yet heard it argued by someone who spent a career inside the intelligence community. She spent 25 years countering adversaries who worked to compromise American security, most of it at the CIA, where she recently retired leading China work on emerging technology and competitive strategy.

Beijing has treated medicine as a strategic asset for decades, and the reflexive American answer is to retreat behind controls and restrictions. Crook spent a career watching that reflex get tested. The eight minutes above are why she argues against it.

The debate ran ninety minutes after she finished. Matt Gline of Roivant and Jake Becraft of Strand Therapeutics opened on innovation and industrial policy. Peter Kolchinsky of RA Capital, Fiona Murray of MIT, and Jason Kelly of Ginkgo Bioworks took the main question of what the American relationship with Chinese biotechnology should be, splitting less over partnership versus rivalry than over whether the answer is to move faster or to use the size of the American market as leverage. Andrew Baum, chief strategy officer at Pfizer, closed with the view from large pharma and argued that domestic policy friction is costing American innovation more than Chinese competition is.

Endpoints News has the full event, including the panel discussions.