Read our e-newsletter, follow us on Facebook, and subscribe to our Blog for up-to-the-minute news and commentary on state prescription drug policy options and the pharmaceutical industry's activities.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

As Pacific Rim Trade Deal Nears End Game, Will Big Pharma Get Provisions to Limit Generic Access & Keep Brand-Name Prices High?

Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) have been ongoing for several years and the Obama Administration is seeking to wrap up the 12-country deal by the end of 2013. While the agreed-to text of the TPP is secret, leaked negotiating offers and past experience with similar treaties with Australia and Korea, as well as recent cases under NAFTA, raise major concerns. Big Pharma is clear about what it wants: no compromise on intellectual property provisions, which aim to delay less expensive generic versions of brand name drugs. Recent reports in Inside US Trade indicate that compromise language may be offered by New Zealand and other countries when talks resume in Mexico in early October. It is impossible to evaluate the merits of such a proposal or its likelihood of success since both the negotiations and proposed text are secret.
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.
Link to Story
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.
For more information:

Sharon Anglin Treat, Executive Director
207-622-5597
streat@reducedrugprices.org