Steve Potts is developing medicines for hard-to-treat cancers. Just don’t ask what, exactly, he is working on. If word gets out, he fears a Chinese company could beat him to market. Potts’s company, whose team has shepherded a combined 13 drugs through Food and Drug Administration approval, is one of a growing number of biotechs going to extreme lengths to stay secret. He won’t pitch venture-capital firms. He hasn’t presented at academic conferences. The company, Breakthru Medicine, is taking money only from a handful of trusted, high-net-worth individuals and universities. For decades, young biotechs broadcast their science publicly to attract investment. Today, more are going dark to keep rivals, many of which are based in China, from replicating their research and doing studies in humans even faster than they can.

Full report : Western biotechs get a new playbook with tighter controls to stay ahead of an ultraefficient pharmaceutical pipeline overseas.