The U.S.-China economic rivalry is moving deeper into biotechnology, with Washington proposing limits on American investment in parts of China’s pharmaceutical industry while Beijing imposes new export curbs on advanced biotech innovations. The Treasury Department unveiled the proposed rules Thursday, Oct. 22. If finalized, they would mark the first restrictions on foreign investment in the pharmaceutical sector, covering specified biological compounds and materials, biomanufacturing equipment and facilities, and technology used in biological design and sequencing. The proposal would also prohibit investment in software or equipment used for automated scientific discovery or experimentation. Brain-computer interfaces and bioinformatics tools would be covered as well. The restrictions put national-security policy on a collision course with a growing commercial relationship: U.S. drugmakers have increasingly looked to China’s expanding biotech industry to help develop future medicines. The Treasury proposal arrives as Beijing’s new export controls target cutting-edge biotech innovations, though the available details do not specify which products or technologies are affected. PhRMA, the trade group representing major drug companies, has argued against restricting investment and business deals in China, saying the limits would not slow the country’s biotech industry. The group also warned that patients could lose access to promising research. “American patients want to have access to the most cutting-edge treatments as quickly as possible, and the ecosystem includes a lot of promising science from China right now,” said Jocelyn Ulrich, PhRMA’s vice president for policy and research. The proposal now places a difficult trade-off before U.S. policymakers: restricting capital and technology flows to a strategic competitor, while limiting American companies’ access to a source of biotech research they say could contribute to new treatments. The Treasury announcement described proposed rules; the restrictions would take effect only if finalized.