Abstract
Brook Baker describes the potential harms to global health from the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement and its failure to balance the interests of patients and the public with those of industry.
Highlights
A new Pacific-Rim trade agreement threatens future access to affordable medicines in the United States and abroad
At the very least, these multiple Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) provisions that extend pharmaceutical powers should be scaled back to the minimum consensus standards reached in the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement
Patients, and others concerned with access to medicines and enhanced generic competition might wonder whether there are justifications for a trade agreement that strengthens IP, investment, and regulatory-participation rights for the originator pharmaceutical industry
Summary
The recently negotiated Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) contains provisions that would dramatically and negatively impact access to affordable medicines in the United States and elsewhere if it is ratified. Provisions in the Intellectual Property (IP) Chapter of TPP lengthen, broaden, and strengthen patent-related monopolies on medicine and erect new monopoly protections on regulatory data as well. Unrestricted IP-investor damage claims deter countries’ willingness to render adverse IP decisions and to adopt IP policy flexibilities designed to increase access to affordable medicines. At the very least, these multiple TPP provisions that extend pharmaceutical powers should be scaled back to the minimum consensus standards reached in the 1994 World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. Health advocates should convince the US Congress and opponents in other countries to reject an agreement that could so adversely impact access to medicines
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