Japan Press Weekly

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2015 June 17 - 23 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Concerns over TPP negotiations on generic drugs mounting worldwide

In the negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade framework, patent rights for medicinal products have again shed the light on the true nature of the TPP scheme prioritizing the interests of large multinational pharmaceutical corporations. This is increasing public concern worldwide.

For large pharmaceutical firms, a longer protection of clinical test data for a new drug is favorable to maintain their profitability and to prevent generic drug manufacturers from having access to the data. However, the longer protection period will lead to a delay in production of generic drugs and is literally a matter of life-and-death for developing countries and poor people. Among the 12 nations participating in the TPP talks, only Japan and the United States are calling for the extension on intellectual property rights.

When the Japanese government on May 15 held a briefing open to the general public about the TPP negotiations, Shibuya Kazuhisa, councilor at the Cabinet Secretariat in charge of the TPP negotiations, said, “Looking at the 12 nations, pharmaceutical companies capable of manufacturing new drugs are found only in Japan and America. I’ve heard that the governments of other 10 countries are opposing the longer protection of test data because they are purchasing generic drugs from major generic drugs manufacturing nations like India.”

Doctors Without Borders, which uses generic drugs in its missions in more than 60 countries, and the U.S. consumer advocacy organization, Public Citizen, in May released their statements expressing their concerns over the extension on intellectual property rights. Paul Kruguman, American economist and winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, in his op-ed piece published in the New York Times on May 22 said, “On intellectual property: patents and copyrights are how we reward innovation. But do we need to increase those rewards at consumers’ expense?”

On June 2, ten UN experts jointly issued a statement stating that the TPP is “likely to have a number of retrogressive effects on the protection and promotion of human rights, including by lowering the threshold of health protection, food safety, and labour standards, by catering to the business interests of pharmaceutical monopolies and extending intellectual property protection.”

Past related article:
> TPP, the very act of betrayal of general public [February 4, 2015]
> TPP may impede availability of generic drugs [July 23, 2014]
> Pharmaceutical industry workers call on gov’t to give up TPP participation [March 24, 2012]