Eleventh hour TPP deal on biotech drugs still harms access to medications, may increase ire over TPP in Congress

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.)