American pharmaceutical firms are partnering with Chinese universities – including those with ties to Beijing’s military and espionage efforts – to produce new drugs.
Bristol-Myers Squibb, one of America’s largest pharmaceutical firms, announced a partnership with the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Tsinghua University to find drugs aimed at treating novel cancers and autoimmune diseases.
The Chinese university, however, has launched cyberattacks against the U.S. government and having a “clear connection” to the Chinese government on issues of technology and national security according to the U.S. State Department.
The school is the alma mater of regime leader Xi Jinping and hosts a “Marxist” journalism school, training the next generation of Chinese state-run media propagandists with the assistance of the New York Times, CNN, and others.
Tsinghua University has also been flagged as “very high risk” for the work it carries out to advance China’s military.
Per the agreement, the Innovation Center for Immune Therapy of Tsinghua University will discover therapeutics that Bristol-Myers Squibb can choose to license. The agreement expands upon collaborative research between the two entities which began in 2013 focused on autoimmune target discovery and structural biology.
In a press release, Carl Decicco, senior vice president and Head of Discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb, praised the institution and celebrated the forthcoming collaboration:
“Tsinghua University is a highly respected research institution with leading capabilities and scientific talent focused on accelerating basic research into potential new therapies. We look forward to bringing projects forward that will benefit from their innovative research in immunology and autoimmune disease.”
“This collaboration with Tsinghua University is another proof of our strategic alignment with China’s innovation-driven healthcare development, as well as our commitment to accelerate delivering of innovative treatment options to Chinese patients,” added Shirley Zhao, general manager and president of Bristol-Myers Squibb in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The partnership follows controversy over American researchers working with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, manipulating bat coronavirus strains to become more lethal to humans at taxpayer expense.
