At bgi, china's genomics giant, the line between biotech and beijing is increasingly blurry

On Jan. 25, 2020, as the city of Wuhan headed into the world’s first Covid-19 lockdown, the Chinese billionaire Wang Jian arrived on one of the last incoming trains. Flanked by a small

entourage of younger scientists, Wang exited the station wearing a mask, a light puffy jacket, and a backpack. Thousands were fleeing the river port metropolis. But Wang came ready to work.

During the SARS epidemic in 2003, the now 66-year-old geneticist had been similarly proactive, repeatedly flying to the outbreak’s epicenter in Guangdong Province to petition authorities to

allow his young bioscience firm, the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), to sequence the deadly respiratory virus’s genome. Wang’s requests were denied until the last moment, after SARS

reached Canada and scientists there became the first to sequence it — a national embarrassment for a rising China. BGI eventually sequenced the SARS genome, but the bureaucratic delay

angered Wang, who built his career in the fast-moving biotech industry off ambitious, risky plays. When the Covid-19 pandemic began, Wang, BGI’s chairman, wasted little time heading to the

source. Experience had taught him to value action over waiting for government permission. And he was at the helm of a much heftier ship now: In just a decade, BGI has gone from a scrappy

startup working out of a shoe factory to a $7 billion biotech giant that boasts the world’s largest genetics research center and more than 6,000 employees in a dozen countries. STAT+

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