Can the United States Win the Biotech Race? - Council on Foreign Relations

Ah, the Council on Foreign Relations has convened to ask whether the United States can 'win the biotech race,' which is a bit like asking if a hungover jockey can win the Grand National while his horse is being written about in a different race entirely. The event's saviours du jour: AI tools that can 'predict what will work in drug development' and 'platform therapeutics that can get approved as a class.' Because the FDA has historically been so cheerfully willing to approve entire classes of drugs sight unseen over some predict-y predictions. Apparently, the recurring AI fervour we flagged with the WSJ last week has stepped it up and decided shovels can now double as scalpels.

There's no actual drug listed, no trial p-value discussed, just foam about 'winning' a chase against oneself. The typical CFR panel will extol computational moats at sub-molecular verification from 'partially modular database compendiums of fail statistics sifted per genotype topography probability matrix AI inferences validated maybe quick lane — effectively throwing spaghetti at regulatory Darwinism until somebody coughs up cure probability patterns. Zero mentions on risk thresholds on hypothetical real molecules generating genuine end-of-efficacy waste end causing signal — there can't be actual demand unmet but discourse makes one billion compute-driven predictions claiming 80x improvements in target identification (say the executives each respective past pipeline five failures before, now expect imminent three maybe twice this year).

Still, the phrase United States being called to consider a robustly growing capacity alongside unmatched emerging-market genomics surveillance rivals (naming oneself leader as projected aspiration rather static role?). That suggests a failure pattern mirroring all nation-led biotech pushes preceding for more expensive short shrift prototyping plus perhaps pharma boon: wasted government subsidies on profit-ready bioproduction havens through clever category ambiguity classification against safety consensus during escalating zoonotic uncertainty. Which makes a 'biotech win' appear equivalent to finding increasingly ingenious lost revenue channels from chronically undervaccinated populations — and dressing it as national competitiveness standing of behalf humanity while fully funded unaccountable. We pinched back competitive disappointment?