For years, American policymakers, researchers, and security experts have warned the United States’s narrowing advantage in clinical research could threaten our dominance in medical innovation. Recognizing the need to address the bottlenecks that make initiating a new trial so costly and cumbersome, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently announced a new effort to accelerate clinical research, dubbed Operation TrialBlazer.
Citing China’s rapid advances in early-stage trials and its growing share of new drug development, Operation TrailBlazer would streamline and modernize U.S. clinical research. Kennedy’s initiative would be a much-needed reprieve for the researchers and scientists developing the future of medicine — if he backs up his pledges with meaningful action that encourages innovation across the life sciences industry. Failure to do so quickly could squander our lead on China, a policy misstep an America First administration cannot afford.
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Over the last few months, Kennedy’s public skepticism of longstanding medical breakthroughs has dwindled as voters signal they do not support drastic policy changes and less access to vaccines. Notably, supporters of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement share this view. Yet Kennedy quietly continues his work to discredit the safety and benefits of certain vaccines, behavior, which is at odds with Operation TrialBlazer’s goal of promoting innovative medicines.
At this significant moment for global scientific and technological competition, and as China plows huge investments into developing future cures and treatments, the U.S. cannot afford to be stuck in the past. That’s especially important when it comes to the emerging medical technologies that could reshape medicine, like mRNA technology. America needs Kennedy to side with innovation, not outdated criticisms, if he hopes to deliver the results he outlined for his new initiative.
In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA has advanced well beyond a vaccine platform for one disease. New mRNA products are already on the market for other infectious diseases, and it’s increasingly looking like mRNA could be the next great breakthrough for personalized cancer treatments. National security experts are also looking to mRNA as a potential first line of defense against man-made biological threats, given the platform’s superior speed and adaptability compared to older medical technologies.
China has seized on this potential. About half of new mRNA vaccines being developed are in China, including over a dozen for cancer. Falling behind to China in this arena isn’t just a matter of national pride. If the world’s next generation of cutting-edge treatments are developed in China, what will that mean for American patients? Why should we trust the Chinese Communist Party, with its history of unethical behavior, to do right by Americans’ health? Is it right to cede the substantial economic impacts of mRNA medicines to China when they can be developed here at home?
While Kennedy has acknowledged the promising role mRNA could play in treating cancer, he has continued to relitigate pandemic-era debates and taken steps that could hamper this technology’s development in the U.S. Last year, he abruptly canceled 22 federal contracts supporting the development of new mRNA vaccines, disrupting research taking place across the country intended to guard against future threats to the country.
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Kennedy’s hostility toward mRNA has unfortunately prompted companies across the country to retreat from investment and hiring, particularly emerging life sciences organizations. In one case, a small mRNA manufacturing company dropped its plan to open a new plant in Plano that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) celebrated months earlier.
The fact is that U.S. industry will not be able to outcompete China in clinical research with one hand tied behind its back — and certainly not with the government undermining entire classes of medicine. The only way to win the global biotechnology race is to use every tool we have and ensure the regulatory environment incentivizes domestic innovation. For Operation TrialBlazer to be a success, Kennedy’s actions must align with his words to ensure the next generation of mRNA medicines are developed by American companies and pass American regulatory standards.
David Hann served in the Minnesota State Senate from 2003 to 2017, including as Senate Minority Leader. He also served as chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota and is a former candidate for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in Minnesota.
