TPP Poised to Deprive Global Consumers of Life-Saving Drugs, Says Levin
U.S. negotiators are pressuring Trans-Pacific Partnership countries to agree to patent and copyright rules that will strongly benefit U.S. corporations at the expense of global consumers, and those rules represent a “step backwards” from previous free trade agreements, said House Ways and Means ranking member Sandy Levin, D-Mich., on May 28. Levin made that argument in his latest in a series of TPP critiques (here). U.S. intellectual property proposals in TPP would deprive millions of global consumers access to life-saving, generic medicines, he said.
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Those proposals would be more generous to U.S. corporations than the rules in U.S. FTAs with Peru, Panama, Colombia and South Korea, said Levin. House Democrats pushed the Bush administration to renegotiate terms in those agreements, he said. Administration officials caved in what resulted in the May 10th Agreement of 2007, which included five years of data exclusivity for biologics, said Levin.
Republican lawmakers, notably Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are insisting on 12 years of data exclusivity for biologics (see 1505130065). “While that is the length of protection in U.S. law under the Affordable Care Act, the president has proposed reducing the term to seven years in his budget,” said Levin. “No other TPP country provides such a long period – in fact, some provide no period of data exclusivity at all for biologics. Indeed, that is consistent with the Federal Trade Commission’s position – that no period of exclusivity for biologics is necessary.”
U.S. negotiators may also push TPP partners to force developing countries to meet the same level of intellectual property protections as developed countries far before developing economies reach an appropriate level of growth, said Levin, after making the case that poorer countries can’t afford to be on a par with developed IP laws. He also pointed to other U.S. proposals that would threaten global access to generic drugs.
Levin criticized Trade Promotion Authority for failing to take a more aggressive position on access to medicine. The legislation, which passed the Senate and now awaits House action, calls for U.S. negotiators “to ensure that trade agreements foster innovation and promote access to medicines.” U.S. negotiators have ignored that goal so far in TPP negotiations, he said. Levin again touted the merits of his alternate TPA bill in recent comments on the House floor, as he called on lawmakers to defeat the TPA legislation moving through Congress (see 1505220017).