It’s essential work and the sort that is urgently needed now, the commission’s report said. China has made biotechnology a strategic priority over the past 20 years and “to remain competitive the United States must take swift action in the next three years,” the report said.

The commission interviewed more than 1,800 people from 30 countries during its fact-finding work. Its report identifies six areas of focus for future efforts:

• Prioritize biotechnology at the national level

• Mobilize the private sector to get U.S. products to scale

• Maximize the benefits of biotechnology for defense

• Out-innovate our strategic competitors

• Build the biotechnology workforce of the future

• Mobilize the collective strengths of our allies and partners

Coons, the ranking member on the Defense Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, said he has spent a lot of time in classified briefings related to challenges in innovation and technology — including the opportunities and risks that artificial intelligence brings to fuels and weapon systems, among other things.

“One of the greatest risks and opportunities is in precision biology,” he said. “We are at risk of being outpaced by the PRC [People’s Republic of China] in exactly these areas. If we don’t redouble our efforts and invest where we have strengths and potential, we will not see a successful American-led innovation century in the 21stt century. NIIMBL is a great example of what happens when public and private sectors come together. It has proven that dramatically and hundreds of cutting-edge American companies are taking advantage of the opportunities here.”

McBride, who serves on the House Space, Science and Technology Committee, said the report makes it clear that the next era of global competition will look quite different.

“It will be about cells, proteins and DNA,” she said. “Biotechnology is no longer just a field of discovery, it’s a bridge to the future — a way to grow stronger crops, cure diseases, defend our nation and even build our economy from the ground up. But the report also warns us that time is short.”

NIIMBL’s leadership is consequential in this, she said.

“Right here in Delaware, we’re proving that the United States can lead this scientific and economic revolution — ethically, equitably and strategically,” McBride said. “We’re training a skilled workforce. We’re partnering across sectors. We’re making real investments in real people and building an ecosystem where innovation doesn’t just serve markets, it serves our community, our security and our shared values.”

The National Biotechnology Initiative Act of 2025, legislation that would implement key recommendations of the report, was introduced earlier this month in the House and the Senate by the commission’s four members of Congress — U.S. Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), who chairs the commission; U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California); U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Oklahoma); and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California). Among other things, it would establish a National Biotechnology Coordination Office within the Executive Office of the President.

Commission Vice Chair Michelle Rozo, a molecular biologist by training and vice president of technical capabilities at the non-profit In-Q-Tel, was among those who visited NIIMBL Tuesday. She said the 11 commissioners were unanimous in every aspect of the report and she is confident Congress will embrace the importance of this work.

“We were able to identify the problems we saw in our biotech ecosystem as well as the common ways we all agreed on for how to solve it from a bipartisan perspective,” she said. “We think these proposals are legislation ready.”

Coons also believes the legislation will find the support it needs.

“This is one of the few things I’ve worked hard on and invested in and believe in that I think has a positive trajectory for federal funding,” he said.

He said commission members urged him to read the classified annex — information not available to the public — and told him “It will scare the bejesus out of you.”

“Given what I’ve already been briefed on, I’m confident that’s true,” he said.

McBride said efforts to address the challenges of biotechnology will benefit everyone.

“I’ll certainly stop at nothing to continue to work in a bipartisan way on behalf of all Delawareans and specifically in the biotechnology space to guarantee that the United States and Delaware are leaders globally,” she said.

The commission’s findings and recommendations reminded Lee of the 2020 study Safeguarding the Bioeconomy, a study he was part of for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. That study noted the United States’ leadership in the sector, while also describing advancing challenges for the economy and national security.

“The clarity and purpose written in this NASCEB report should resonate with all Americans,” he said.

Rozo toured NIIMBL’s headquarters with two commission colleagues — Paul Arcangeli, a veteran of the U.S. Army and an expert in national security policy and legislation with extensive experience as a staffer on the House Armed Services Committee, and Dov Zakheim, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and senior fellow at the CNA Corporation, a federally funded think tank.

With its data center, teaching lab, DNA sequencing facilities, bioimaging capabilities and bioinformatics, NIIMBL offers extensive opportunity for innovative approaches and the collaborative partnerships needed to foster and expedite this work and train the workforce of the future.

“NIIMBL is an important program,” Rozo said. “We need more emphasis on private-public partnerships like this to make our biotechnology innovation ecosystem and biomanufacturing capabilities the most advanced in the world.”

Commissioners also toured a new installation not far from NIIMBL’s headquarters on the STAR Campus, where NIIMBL has established “Blackhawk,” a program that is demonstrating how six portable building modules, known as pods, can be quickly fashioned into a transportable biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility. The design includes a mechanical pod for heating, ventilation and air conditioning as well as airtight clean rooms that house process equipment such as a bioreactor and chromatography system, along with staging areas for moving materials in and out of the clean room.

Coons said he was excited about development of the Securing American Biomanufacturing Research and Education (SABRE) Center, a testbed biopharmaceutical manufacturing facility that will one day be adjacent to UD’s Ammon Pinizzotto Biopharmaceutical Innovation Center, where NIIMBL is based. Ground was broken last year at the site, which is expected to grow into an 80,000 square-foot Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility, supporting innovation and workforce training that will help the U.S. weather future public health emergencies and other challenges.

“Indeed, UD is currently working to develop a new facility here on the STAR Campus to train workers in advanced-manufacturing techniques, which will help to expand the skilled specialized workforce that is needed to make biopharmaceuticals and other high-precision products,” Assanis said. “Research universities like UD are uniquely positioned to serve as the catalysts for this kind of innovation and development. Universities provide access to experts in biotechnology, as well as the basic and applied research that makes innovations possible. With our other partners in higher education, we prepare students at all levels to work and grow in this industry.”