Eleventh hour TPP deal on biotech drugs still harms access to medications, may increase ire over TPP in Congress
Statement of Peter Maybarduk, Director, Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines Program
Oct. 5, 2015 -- The deal brokered today by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Australian government on biotech drugs, which supposedly paved the way for an overall “deal in principle” for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), fell short of Big Pharma’s most extreme demands but will contribute to preventable suffering and death. The final deal as reported does not seem to adhere to the “May 10th 2007 Agreement” standard on access to affordable medicines and could complicate any eventual final TPP deal’s prospects in the U.S. Congress. In biologics and other areas, TPP rules would expand monopoly protections for the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of people’s access to affordable medicines. (The May 10th Agreement was brokered in 2007 between Democratic congressional leadership and the Bush administration to begin to reduce the negative consequences of U.S.-negotiated trade agreements, for health, the environment and labor.)
In recent days, monopoly periods for biologics, which are
medical products derived from living organisms and include many
new and forthcoming cancer treatments, became the most
controversial issue in the attempt to conclude a TPP. The highly
technical and confusing biologics deal appears to not guarantee
Big Pharma the minimum eight-year automatic monopolies that
industry has taken for granted as an eventual TPP outcome.
According to informed sources, countries could limit automatic
biologics exclusivity to not more than five years, at which
point affordable biosimilars could enter the market. (Biologics
exclusivity is separate from and independent of patent
protection, though the protections may overlap.) Yet the deal
also includes mechanisms that would help the USTR browbeat
countries, now and in the future, to get what Big Pharma wants,
and pull countries toward longer monopoly periods.
This
week, U.S. Rep. Sander Levin made clear that May 10 agreement
limits exclusivity to five years, with a “concurrent
period” mechanism to ensure faster access that is not
present in the TPP biologics deal. Several other TPP rules,
including those relating to patent term extensions, linkage and
evergreening, go beyond the limits of the May 10th Agreement. In
late July, 11 of the 28 Democrats who voted for Fast Track
legislation warned in a letter that the TPP could fail in
Congress if it did not adhere to the May 10 standard with
respect to access to medicines.
With respect to other
issues in the TPP’s Intellectual Property Chapter, the
transition periods before developing countries must meet all of
the TPP’s protections for pharmaceutical corporations and
possible exceptions to those rules are not sufficient to protect
access to medicines. Transition periods will be very short and
apply to only a few of the most harmful rules. Exceptions will
be limited to very few rules or countries. Within a few years,
most, if not all, harmful TPP rules will apply to all
countries.
Controversies over pharmaceuticals and
intellectual property, including frequently unanimous resistance
from negotiating countries, have held up the TPP for years. Many
courageous negotiators and others from developing countries
stood up to industry and USTR pressure, consistently, to protect
their people’s health. A number of harmful rules were
eliminated from TPP proposals as a result of this work.
Yet
the Obama administration showed itself willing to risk its
entire trade agenda to satisfy the avarice of the pharmaceutical
lobby. In that respect, people everywhere trying to understand
why medicine prices are so high find a disheartening answer in
the TPP negotiations: The pharmaceutical industry has purchased
tremendous influence with political leaders.
Source:
Public Citizen
