TPP and Access to Medicines
TPP and Access to Medicines
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was a proposed free trade agreement between Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Official publication of the text in November 2015 revealed that the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) was successful in pressuring TPP countries to accept some of its proposed rules that expand pharmaceutical monopoly protections and trade away access to medicines. Resistance to USTR demands prevented some harmful rules from being included in the agreement, but many bad rules remained. By stopping the ratification of the deal in national legislatures like the U.S. Congress, people power prevented the TPP’s harmful rules from coming into effect.
Public Citizen and our partners envision a very different Asia-Pacific region partnership–one that advances pharmaceutical access and innovation simultaneously. Through analysis, and advocacy, we worked to spotlight the implications of the TPP for public health and the knowledge economy in the U.S. and other TPP countries and helped countries push back against Big Pharma’s corporate influence.
Washington Post Editorial Board: “No issue caused more conflict in the latest round of talks — or in the general political debate over the TPP — than the question of intellectual property and other protections for the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.” (August 2015)
October 9, 2015 – WikiLeaks releases the TPP intellectual property chapter — see Public Citizen’s analysis here
- How the TPP Endangers Affordable Access to Medicines
- How the TPP Endangers Access to Knowledge, Technology and Information
- Public Citizen Report: Additional Exclusivity for Biologic Drugs in the TPP: A Need or Greed?
Trans-Pacific Partnership
Country Resource Page
Find country-specific news, analyses and other resources here. Translations available in Spanish and Vietnamese.
Leaked Trade Negotiation Texts and Analysis
The TPP is being negotiated behind closed doors with the negotiation text kept secret from the public. Find leaked texts and analyses here.
Letters and Statements
Find letters sent by civil society organizations to their governments and statements on the TPP here.
Fact Sheets & Analyses
- Factsheet: How the TPP Endangers Access to Affordable Medicines (updated November 2015)
- Memo: TPP vs. Access to Medicines in Developing Countries; TPP Rolls Back “May 10th Agreement” Reforms (updated November 2015)
- Memo: Three Burning Questions about the TPP Transparency Annex and Its Implications for U.S. Health Care (updated November 2015)
- Memo: Ambiguity Leads to Fallacy: Biologics Exclusivity in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (updated November 2015)
- Memo: TPP Transition Periods: Bad Rules Comming Soon in a TPP Country Near You (updated November 2015)
- Memo: The Highlights of the Trans-Pacific Partnership E-commerce Chapter (coauthored with Tamir Israel of Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic — CIPPIC)
- Public Citizen analyses of the final TPP IP text published by WikiLeaks (Oct 2015)
- How would the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade away access to medicines?
- Public Citizen Report: Additional Exclusivity for Biologic Drugs in the TPP: A Need or Greed?
- What are the harmful provisions for access to medicines in the TPP?
- Memo: New TPP Maneuvering on Biotech Drugs: 5+3 Still Makes 8
- Public Citizen analyses of the Oct 2014 WikiLeaks TPP IP text
- Memo: Three Burning Questions about the Leaked TPP Transparency Annex and Its Implications for U.S. Health Care
- Memo on Timing of Utility
- Medical Procedure Patents in the TPP: A Comparative Perspective on the Highly Unpopular U.S. Proposal
- Public Citizen in the Harvard Human Rights Journal: Freeing Trade at the Expense of Local Crop Markets?: A Look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s New Plant-Related Intellectual Property Rights from a Human Rights Perspective
- Public Citizen in the Yale Journal of International Law: What Is Patentable Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership? (full article)
- Investor-State Attacks on Public Interest Policies: Access to Medicines; ISDS: Enforcer for Big Pharma Wish List; Health at Stake
TPP Negotiations Rounds Archive
TPP and Access to Medicines Article Archive
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