Posted on 07/01/2015 6:08:52 AM PDT by GIdget2004
A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law.
POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam. While U.S. trade officials would not confirm the authenticity of the document, they downplayed its importance, emphasizing that the terms of the deal are likely to change significantly as the talks enter their final stages. Those terms are still secret, but the public will get to see them once the twelve TPP nations reach a final agreement and President Obama seeks congressional approval.
Still, the draft chapter will provide ammunition for critics who have warned that TPP’s protections for pharmaceutical companies could dump trillions of dollars of additional health care costs on patients, businesses and governments around the Pacific Rim. The highly technical 90-page document, cluttered with objections from other TPP nations, shows that U.S. negotiators have fought aggressively and, at least until Guam, successfully on behalf of Big Pharma.
The draft text includes provisions that could make it extremely tough for generics to challenge brand-name pharmaceuticals abroad. Those provisions could also help block copycats from selling cheaper versions of the expensive cutting-edge drugs known as “biologics” inside the U.S., restricting treatment for American patients while jacking up Medicare and Medicaid costs for American taxpayers.
“There’s very little distance between what Pharma wants and what the U.S. is demanding,” said Rohat Malpini, director of policy for Doctors Without Borders.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Versus dumping those costs on Americans?
As always..the devil is in the details or follow the money.
One of the things Trump emphasized was his ability to negotiate deals favorable to his interests.
I’d feel a lot better if I had that kind of confidence in those negotiating TPP now. When was the last time the U.S. struck a deal that benefited Mr. and Mrs. Average American?
If other nations have to pay for the cures they get from Big Pharma research, I suppose it would be too much to ask to quit soaking Americans for the entire cost/expected profits? They will just expect bigger profits, right?
This is going to be a perpetual wrangle, at least till the Lord comes and you don’t need drugs anymore to heal or treat anything.
Worse than any particular policy thrust is that all these game shifters are going on in quasi-secret. When that is added to the Obama administration perfidy, it doesn’t sound like what we used to know as representative democracy. Titans are wrestling now and they just want the US citizen to get out of their way.
It probably was during a GOP administration
As always..the devil is in the details or follow the money.
Bingo. You know there’s GOT to be something in it for baby boy Obama, for him wanting to jam it down our throats.
Pharmas are quickly becoming Public Enemy #1 in the crony capitalist game.
We could say this is a quid pro quo for America’s sake, if these are US based pharma companies. For them to get richer from foreign business isn’t an utter downer for the rest of the USA. Rich entities spend. If I were in business but struggling, I’d prefer richer customers to poorer ones, all else equal.
I think both major parties realize now that if they realistically want more taxes they are going to have to get more spending.
Hillary was notorious in the past for bashing Big Pharma. Has anyone asked her take on this? Sounds like it could jam her up good.
It may be as crude as more business = more to tax.
There is a lot of competition for the #1 crony spot.
One thing though... if they think Obamacare as it appears to have its current trajectory will be a bonanza for spending on brand spanking new drugs... they ought to look at how socialized medicine plays out elsewhere. Always starving for Other People’s Money, it is rationed to the extreme. Wonderful for the aspirin makers, not so much for the xyzab developers.
Perhaps the game will change if the GOP makes it successfully to the presidency, and not in a form that knuckles under the Democrats.
Was it worth it Marco being the Vote that got it passed?
There is still a huge cloud of fog over this. We don’t even know what it looks like now.
An insider who was pressing some important amendment... a case could be made for that insider to also press consideration of the overall bill.
The secrecy in this thing is really to be loathed, no matter what. While not absolutely BANNED by law, such secrecy ought to be. The Constitution was not made to try to plug every possible hole in the new USA political system, and some optimistic assumptions were made about the decency of the players.
Keep in mind:
Patented Drug = $325 (it works)
Generic (composition can vary by 10%-15%) = $12
Except that the “Generic” is crap and doesn’t work.
It doesn’t matter which drug I’m referring to.
The lesson holds.
The key determinant in the “generic” is its COST_EFFECTIVENESS” and NOT its Medical Effectiveness.
Their stocks have moved up big time because of government policy.
The image of pharma was in big trouble back around 2004 with the Left demanding a Medicare prescription plan for seniors.
In comes Karl Rove and W Bush to create Medicare Part D with taxpayers helping to pay the way for pharma products.
Now Obamacare with its subsidies and higher costs to everyone with health insurance coverage plus mandatory coverage or high taxes bails out pharma even more.
Pharma and Pharma related stocks are soaring and I am invested there. Health Care stocks ‘jumped’ after the SCOTUS ruling last week.
The impression I get is that the American market is what makes all of this a going concern, and that lax intellectual property laws in the rest of the world have set up the situation that we are subsidizing the rest of the world’s healthcare and driving its innovations.
If they do not go beyond American law in the protection of intellectual property I have no problem with this. Quite frankly I think we could stand for a loosening of restrictions here, which would still result in greater restrictions elsewhere. The problem is though, that I have zero faith in Big Pharma to take such a windfall in good grace. I would love to see a situation where they are actually paid in other countries for services rendered, not a situation where they extort anything they can get from humanity while hiding behind lobbyists and loopholes.
Thing is though that we have no way of knowing, because this is all being hammered out in secret, and though we are expected to pay for it, and though our governmental institutions, officials, and legal authority are being subverted in the service of this, we have no say or even so much as a peek.
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