Karen Freifeld
(Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives China Committee has asked the FBI and intelligence agencies for a report on GenScript Biotechnology Ltd and three of its subsidiaries to determine whether the Chinese Communist Party has influence over the company’s operations.
In a May 30 letter to the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, committee chairman John Moolenaar and ranking committee member Raja Krishnamoorthi said GenScript’s collaborations with U.S. companies and the government raise concerns about the intellectual property rights of U.S. companies and could lead to improved Chinese biotechnology capabilities.
The three subsidiaries mentioned in the letter are Bestzyme, Legend Biotech and Probio.
Drugmaker Legend partnered with Johnson & Johnson in 2017 to develop a cancer cell therapy called Calvicuty. The company sold $500 million of the drug last year and expects to eventually generate more than $5 billion in annual sales.
GenScript, Legend and J&J did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did they respond to requests for comment for their other subsidiaries.GenScript is a pharmaceutical research and manufacturing service provider that has more than 200,000 customers in more than 100 countries, according to its website, with sales, manufacturing, R&D facilities in China, the United States, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Lawmakers’ interest in GenScript comes two weeks after a separate House committee approved a bill to restrict business with China’s WuXi AppTec, WuXi Biologics BGI, MGI, Complete Genomics and other biotech companies of concern.
The bill still must be passed by both houses of Congress before it can be signed into law by President Joe Biden, but if passed, it would pressure U.S. pharmaceutical and health care companies to reduce their reliance on Chinese research and manufacturing.
“GenScript’s role as a contract development and manufacturing organization, which includes services such as manufacturing of custom gene syntheses for companies and U.S. government agencies, raises concerns about potential risks to U.S. companies’ intellectual property and GenScript’s broader role in advancing China’s biotechnology capabilities,” the letter said.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Mike Ehrman in New York; Editing by Chris Sanders and Josie Kao)
