Leaked TPP Passage Shows Pact Will Increase Cancer Medicine Costs

Access to affordable cancer treatments in the U.S and 11 other countries will be delayed for years if terms revealed in a leaked draft Intellectual Property Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) should go into effect, Public Citizen said.

The text of the proposed trade deal was obtained by WikiLeaks and analyzed in collaboration with Public Citizen.

TPP is a controversial agreement that multinational corporations are pushing on governments and are negotiating behind closed doors with officials from the United States, Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Negotiations on the deal have taken years and continue in Australia this week, with a ministerial-level meeting to follow on Oct. 25-27.

The leaked text shows worrying developments in patent and copyright issues and explains in part why TPP talks remain deadlocked. Measures in the text, which favors the patent-based pharmaceutical industry, face stiff opposition from most of the other TPP countries and health care advocates. Large brand-name drug firms want to use the TPP to impose rules throughout Asia that will raise prices on medicine purchases for consumers and governments.

Language extending patents prevent other companies from manufacturing generic versions of drugs that are cheaper. With billions at stake, Big Pharma wants the TPP to be a road map for rules that would govern Pacific Rim economies for the next several decades.

If the TPP is ratified with this U.S.-proposed provision included, Congress will be unable to reduce the years a patent lasts without risking significant penalties and investor-state arbitration.