China is poised to relax its stringent decade-long regulations on human genetic resources in response to complaints from industry and academia that overly tough restrictions are choking innovation, particularly in the burgeoning biotech sector that is racing to create new medicines to treat everything from cancer to rare diseases.

The National Health Commission (NHC) is spearheading the reform, focusing on revising rules for the use and management of human genetic resources, sources told Caixin. The aim is to streamline administrative procedures, boost regulatory efficiency, and invigorate scientific research and the biopharmaceutical industry as a whole, the sources said.