While we would expect the pharmaceutical industry to support these anti-consumer policies, it is unfortunate that the US Trade Representative has consistently come down on the side of Big Pharma -- even though this stance is inconsistent with Administration budget provisions, the financial sustainability of the Affordable Care Act, continued funding of AIDS/HIV drugs, and would make it harder to implement recommendations such as those in a recent federal report urging Medicaid-style rebates in the Medicare Part B program (hospital-administered medications).
As reported by Act Up Paris and the InfoJustice Blog, over the past few years, provisions in trade agreements have been used to justify seizing legitimate shipments of generic medicines routing through the European Union, under the pretext of protecting "intellectual property" even though these medicines were neither counterfeit nor under patents in the source or destination countries.
Instead of encouraging U.S. states and Congress to pursue cost-effective prescription drug purchasing, as most other industrialized nations do (for example this UK program), the TPP and other trade deals will likely lock in already higher U.S. prices, and will seek to force other countries to raise prices. Read more analysis of the US government's TPP positions in this blog post by Knowledge Ecology International.
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More information:
Maine Citizen Trade Policy Commission's 2012 assessment of trade impacts including pharmaceutical policy
NLARx Executive Director Sharon Treat's analysis of the leaked US pharmaceutical pricing text and implications for state medicaid programs
Read the resolution adopted by NLARx in 2011 on trade and pharmaceutical policy, still relevant to the TPP negotiations.
