This week, US lawmakers acknowledged that the BIOSECURE Act has not slowed China's rise in biotech. The deal data shows why.

BIOSECURE took effect in December 2025, and it aimed at one channel: manufacturing and contract services, the WuXi end of the relationship. The channel that actually ties the two industries together kept widening.

We pulled every disclosed China-to-US/EU drug-asset licensing deal from 2020 to today, 164 in all. The trend is not decoupling. It is acceleration.

In 2020, 9 such deals totaled $5.6B. In 2025, 42 deals hit a record $91.6B. 2026 already stands at $88.9B across 30 deals in under six months, on pace to break the record again. The flow climbed straight through the BIOSECURE debate and its enactment. AstraZeneca alone has in-licensed 12 China-origin assets worth about $36B, with Merck, GSK, Lilly, Pfizer and BMS close behind. Around a quarter to a third of China's out-licensing deals now go to US or European buyers, and oncology is half of them. The dependency deepened while the policy looked elsewhere.

That gap is why a new bill, BINSA, arrived this month. It targets licensing, investment and joint ventures, the channel BIOSECURE never touched.

The wall went up. The deals went around it.