The US government needs to enshrine intellectual property rights of drugs that are discovered via AI, and embrace the technology’s power if the nation wants to stay ahead of China in the race of drug innovation, warned Luma Group founder Josh Fink at Semafor World Economy in Washington, DC.

“There’s one thing that America is incredible at — and it is our IP system, and it helps people take risks — but have the rewards for the risks they take,” said Fink on Wednesday. “And if there’s not a potential reward at the end of the day, because of the lack of IP around it…you’re not gonna be having people take that risk.”

In an era of AI, Fink agreed there needs to be regulation around drug discovery and drug development using AI, but he emphasized one key message: The US will lose the battle of drug development to other countries including China if the nation doesn’t embrace AI to do things cheaper, faster and better.

“[Drug development] is a national priority for China, and they are catching up in a really, really big way. I would say this becomes a national security issue for the United States,” he argued.

In addition to embracing AI, the US needs to support developing talent in the sector, he said. “If you lose it, there’s no going back,” Fink said, adding that encouraging the future generation to innovate in the sector is vital.

“We have to empower the next generation to want to go study biology, to want to go study bioinformatics to be able to go into this field and take risks and innovate — and we need to continue to develop capital markets to continue to have depth of capital markets to support entrepreneurs in this space.”