China’s edge in fast, cost-effective early clinical trials has propelled its emergence as a global biopharmaceutical powerhouse, but there is a risk that the United States could take steps to curb that advantage, according to analysts. US lawmakers and officials at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have raised the alarm about American pharmaceutical companies’ growing reliance on conducting early clinical trials in China, flagging the opaqueness of the process and the need to keep medical...