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President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Monday to boost funding for the U.S. biotechnology industry in an attempt to reduce Chinese dependence on materials for agriculture, clean energy, and COVID-19 vaccines.
Biden would deliver a speech in Boston on Monday after signing the order, senior administration officials said, adding that the White House would hold a summit on Wednesday to discuss the biotech initiative and announce investments to expand domestic R&D and production.
The executive order will map out a strategy to allocate federal funding to boost domestic manufacturing for the use of microbes and biologically derived materials to create a vast array of resources ranging from new medicines and human tissues to new foods and fertilizers.
Potential beneficiaries could include: COVID-19 vaccine makers: Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), BioNTech (BNTX), Moderna (MRNA), Novavax (NVAX), Producers of biodiesel: Renewable Energy Group of Chevron (CVX), Extreme Biodiesel (OTCPK:XTRM) and Corteva, Inc. (CTVA), a maker of genetically modified seeds.
Meanwhile, the White House announced Monday that Biden would appoint Dr. Renee Wegrzyn, a longtime science advisor, as the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), a newly established agency to drive biomedical innovations.
Dr. Wegrzyn serves as the Vice President for Business Development at cell programming platform company Ginkgo Bioworks (DNA).
The administration’s latest attempt to counter China in biomanufacturing comes weeks after President Biden signed an executive order to boost domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
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