Sponsors (24)
Official title: To authorize the National Biotechnology Initiative, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 9, 2025 by Stephanie I. Bice · Last progress April 9, 2025
The bill centralizes and funds federal coordination to accelerate biotech innovation, workforce development, and biodefense—but does so at increased taxpayer cost and with trade‑offs in privacy, transparency, regulatory rigor, and potential concentration of authority that could favor larger firms.
Researchers, startups, and biotechnology firms will get faster, more coordinated federal R&D support and clearer commercialization pathways, likely speeding new biotech products and economic activity.
Students, workers, and educational institutions will benefit from expanded workforce-development programs, fellowships, and curriculum support that grow the domestic biotech talent pipeline and job opportunities.
Federal agencies, policy makers, and researchers will gain clearer roles, statutory definitions, and a single federal coordination structure (including a one-stop website), reducing ambiguity and improving efficiency in funding and regulatory navigation.
Taxpayers will face increased federal spending from a new executive office, staff, grants, and program support over multiple years.
Patients, students, researchers, and the public face increased privacy and misuse risks because centralized data sharing and expanded biological data collection raise the chance of sensitive health or genomic information exposure.
Public transparency and oversight will be reduced because exempting advisory meetings from FACA eliminates routine public access to participant lists, minutes, and other safeguards.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Establishes a White House National Biotechnology Initiative, creates an NBCO and Director, and requires interagency coordination of biotech R&D, data, commercialization, biosafety, and national-security reviews.
Creates a White House-led National Biotechnology Initiative to coordinate federal biotechnology activities across agencies, promote research and commercialization, strengthen biosecurity and biosafety, and develop shared data, standards, and workforce programs. It establishes a National Biotechnology Coordination Office (NBCO) in the Executive Office of the President, a Director (the President's principal biotechnology advisor), and an interagency committee to implement a national strategy and coordinate agency actions. The bill directs participating agencies to appoint senior leads, align research and procurement, share biological data and standards, support commercialization, conduct horizon scanning, and carry out national-security-related reviews of foreign investments and supply chains; it also allows the NBCO to convene expert groups exempt from the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The Office and Director must be created and the committee designated within 180 days of enactment.