TPP Is 'Worst Trade Agreement' for Medicine Access, Says Doctors Without Borders Tharanga Yakupitiyage - Inter Press Service
go to original October 10, 2015

“The TPP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] will go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries,” said Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in a statement following the signing of the TPP trade deal.

The controversial agreement is the largest trade deal in a generation, bringing together 12 countries around the world including the United States to govern 40 percent of the world’s economy.

...Though the deal has yet to be formally adopted by the signatories’ legislative bodies, it has already received criticism from numerous civil society members, including MSF, whose main concern arises from the deal’s provisions on data protection for biologic drugs.

Biologic drugs include any therapy from a biological source including vaccines, anti-toxins and monoclonal antibodies for diseases including cancer and HIV/AIDS.

According to the Brookings Institution, a US-based think tank, biologics are larger and structurally more complex than other drugs, making them more difficult and costly to develop. On average, biologics cost 22 times more than nonbiologics.

Due to these high costs, companies utilize data from the original drug creator to develop “biosimilars,” cheaper, generic versions of biologics. MSF has stated that this competition is the “best way to reduce drug prices and improve access to treatment.”

For instance, MSF treats almost 300,000 people with HIV/AIDS in 21 countries with generic drugs. These drugs have reduced the organization’s cost of treatment from US$10,000 per patient per year to US$140 per patient per year.

However, in the US, biologics creators have 12 years of data exclusivity. During this period, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cannot approve a biosimilar that utilizes original biologic data.

Data protection rules vary in other countries, while Peru, Chile and Mexico do not have any biologics data rules at all.

Read the rest at Inter Press Service | En español

Related: WikiLeaks TPP Leak: Intellectual Property Chapter 'Would Cost Lives', Bolster Monopolistic Protections (HNGN)

Related: WikiLeaks Releases Intellectual Property Chapter of TPP, Stokes Generic Drug Fears (Edge Insider)

Related: Leaked TPP Chapter on IP Sets Terms of Biologics Data Exclusivity (Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society)

Related: Drugs Cost Up to 10 Times More in US (World Socialist Web Site)

Related: WikiLeaks Publishes TPP Intellectual Property Documents (Anadolu Agency)

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