‘We now know millions of dollars designed to help our small businesses were hijacked to fuel innovation in Communist China,’ the Iowa Republican said.
Senator Joni Ernst is pressing the National Institute of Health for more information related to research grants the agency gave to Chinese inventors through programs meant for small businesses.
The Iowa Republican wrote a letter to NIH director Monica Bertagnolli on Monday asking for details about its due diligence processes for applications to small business grant programs that the agency previously used to deliver taxpayer funds to Chinese investors, National Review has learned.
“I am greatly concerned about the National Institutes of Health (NIH) issuing federal awards through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs that have funded patents for China-based inventors in critical technology areas,” the letter reads.
The NIH is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, one of 11 agencies including the Pentagon that participate in SBIR and STTR funding.
Ernst identified ten companies that received roughly $50 million in awards over the last decade from the SBIR and STTR programs, and warned of the possibility that the Chinese Communist Party could exploit U.S. taxpayer-funded research and development.
“These ten identified companies collectively received just under $50 million in SBIR-STTR awards. As a result, American taxpayer funded research and development (R&D) is now exposed to potential exploitation by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP),” the letter adds.
China is believed to be systematically stealing U.S. intellectual property to advance its key industries. Chinese agents have conducted espionage operations against the U.S. to the tune of billions of dollars in order to further the Chinese Communist Party’s interests.
Ernest successfully pushed for reforms to the SBIR and STTR programs in 2022 to institute due diligence mechanisms meant to prevent China, Russia, and other American adversaries from accessing the grant funding.
But concerns remain about the extent to which Chinese researchers are still benefiting from U.S. government funding. Data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office show government agencies helped fund more than 1,000 Chinese patents since 2010, including patents in biotechnology and semiconductors, two vital industries to U.S. national security, Reuters first reported in August.
Of those patents, at least 26 were partially or entirely funded by NIH grants through SBIR and STTR, Ernst said in the letter. She is demanding NIH explain how it is evaluating intellectual property exposure and screening applicants to determine whether they pose a foreign influence risk. Ernst is requesting the NIH answer her questions by November 4.
“It is inexcusable that at the same time Americans were being forced to close their businesses because of COVID-19, Chinese researchers were cashing in on U.S. taxpayer-funded patents,” Ernst said in a statement to National Review. “As if that alone was not bad enough, we now know millions of dollars designed to help our small businesses were hijacked to fuel innovation in Communist China.”
In 2020, the NIH through the SBIR program funded a clinical trial for a therapeutic treatment for Covid-19 as the world grappled with the effects of the pandemic. Covid-19 is believed to have originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a Chinese research facility linked to the People’s Liberation Army that conducted risky experiments on mutated coronaviruses.
The NIH previously funded a nonprofit organization, EcoHealth Alliance, that collaborated with the Wuhan lab on the risky coronavirus experiments. EcoHealth is now barred from receiving taxpayer funds following intense scrutiny of its research from a congressional panel investigating the Covid-19 pandemic.