NEW DELHI — The U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector remains critically dependent on Chinese inputs, leaving patients and drugmakers exposed to supply chain risks, according to a report cited in The National Interest.
The report points to heparin, a widely used blood thinner, as a key example of U.S. reliance on China. About 70% of the U.S. supply of the drug originates in China, according to the article.
The two U.S.-based plants that produce heparin active pharmaceutical ingredients — SPL in Wisconsin and Smithfield BioScience in Ohio — are now subsidiaries of Chinese parent companies. The report said there is no commercial-scale, independently American-owned producer of heparin APIs.
The article also cited the 2007 and 2008 contamination crisis, when Chinese-origin heparin was linked to the deaths of at least 149 Americans. Contaminated supplies reached 11 countries, and the contaminant was traced to Changzhou, Jiangsu, according to the report.
Chinese officials denied that the contamination originated in China and refused to allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct a criminal investigation, the article said. No one was held accountable.
The report said the deaths did not lead to meaningful changes in U.S. supply chain strategy. It also warned that current shortages have not prompted enough diversification, with U.S. companies continuing to exit parts of the heparin supply chain.
“Sources of production are thinning, not diversifying. Every exit narrows the field that Chinese API producers must satisfy and raises the share of American patients whose treatment depends on a supply chain Washington does not control,” the article said.
The article also cited a May 2026 analysis by Rhodium Group of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, which found that Beijing is reinforcing its control over value chains through regulation and economic coercion. Rhodium said the number of products in which China is considered highly dominant rose from 192 in 2021 to 315 in 2024.
China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, issued in March 2026, identified biomanufacturing as one of the sectors targeted for “decisive breakthroughs,” signaling Beijing’s intent to move further up the pharmaceutical value chain, the article said.
The report compared the pharmaceutical supply chain risk to China’s leverage in rare earths and fertilizer, where dominance over production has given Beijing significant influence over trading partners and global prices.
A manufacturing failure or diplomatic dispute could disrupt heparin supplies from China, with serious consequences for patients who rely on the drug, including dialysis patients, the article warned.
The article also said recent U.S. efforts to build pharmaceutical resilience may not fully address the heparin problem. An August 2025 executive order creating a Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients Reserve directed the federal government to stockpile six months’ worth of APIs for about two dozen critical drugs, with a preference for domestic manufacturing.
But the report said the flagship Phlow-BARDA federal investment is built around continuous-flow chemistry, a technology suited for small-molecule drugs but not heparin, which is a biologically derived polysaccharide extracted from animal tissue. (Source: IANS)
