Australia’s primary negotiator on medicines on the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Dr Ruth Lopert, warns that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal – the US-led regional trade pact between 12 nations (including Australia) – could force Australian taxpayers to spend millions of dollars more to subsidise medicines. From The ABC:
“The objective is to prolong monopolies on medicines and thereby maintain prices. While the medicine has a monopoly in the market the price can be determined by the seller,” Dr Lopert said.
“The taxpayer will be paying more. Ultimately, if this affects the long-term sustainability of the PBS, that will likely be pushed onto consumers through higher co-payments.
“To give you an example – the drug Humira used to treat rheumatoid arthritis – a one-year delay in the marketing of a follow-on version of that drug … would mean savings foregone of $44 million based on 2013 expenditure.”
And that is just one drug.
“US senator Orrin Hatch has said there can’t be a TPP without 12 years of data protection for biologics and I think that would be a disaster in Australia,” Dr Lopert said…
“Analyses of potential costs to the PBS in delays in generic and biosimilar market entry can’t simply be dismissed as scaremongering. The numbers are real.”
Dr Lopert has also warned that the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions that the US is seeking could lead to massive lawsuits against the Government:
“The Canadian government is being sued by Eli-Lily to the tune of $500 million dollars – [these are] not theoretical concerns these are actual concerns,” she said.
But it is not just the potential cost of these lawsuits that worries experts, it is the scope for intimidation.
“They have a chilling effect on policymakers whether to pursue certain policies [like plain packaging] that are creative and forward thinking,” Dr Lopert said.
Of course, regular MB readers will be familiar with these concerns, which I have voiced dozens of times over the past 18 months (for example here and here).
The TPP is shaping up as an unmitigated disaster and trade minister, Andrew Robb, would be a fool to sign Australia up to it.
