[CTC] California Can’t Afford the Big Pharma Giveaways in NAFTA 2.0

[Arthur Stamoulis]

https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2019/09/02/california-cant-afford-the-big-pharma-giveaways-in-nafta-2-0-hannah-lyon/

California Can’t Afford the Big Pharma Giveaways in NAFTA 2.0

Many Californians routinely forgo needed medications and medical procedures due to the shockingly high prices. Our politicians should be working on ways to ease this burden. Unfortunately, our elected officials in Congress are being asked to rubber-stamp a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that would lock-in high medicine prices.

President Trump’s pending NAFTA proposal, which the administration refers to as the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), would undermine Congress’ ability to pass laws lowering medicine costs. The Trump Administration has inserted new language into NAFTA that would grant pharmaceutical corporations special monopoly protections, allowing them to block competition from generic medicine makers and charge higher prices in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Of special concern for me is the proposal’s lengthy monopoly protections for biologic drugs. Derived from living organisms, biologics are cutting-edge medical treatments, the forefront of advances in new cancer, heart disease and arthritis care, as well as vaccines.

At age 27, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer, a death sentence for many. I was lucky to find a cutting-edge biologic clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health which ultimately saved my life. Everyone suffering from cancer should be able to access treatments like mine, not just those who can afford the astronomical costs.

Californians spent more than 14 billion dollars on biologics last year, and that number will likely grow in the years ahead if policymakers aren’t able to reign in the prices drugmakers charge us.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s NAFTA proposal would require each country to provide pharmaceutical companies with at least 10 years of “marketing exclusivity” for new biologic drugs — a move that would keep less-expensive “biosimilars” (i.e., generic biologics) off the market.

This new NAFTA language, as well as other new provisions that make it easier for companies to extend the life of existing drug patents, would mean an extension of high medicine prices in the United States, as well as the imposition of higher prices on our neighbors in Mexico and Canada.

Legislation currently pending in Congress that would cut the existing U.S. biologic monopoly period by years would be in violation of NAFTA 2.0 if the pact is approved as written. And that’s the point. At a time when politicians are finally responding to public anger over healthcare costs, this pact would tie policymakers’ hands on the issue.

The dividing lines over the drug company giveaways in this deal are extremely clear. The pharmaceutical industry’s lobby group PhRMA says that the intellectual property standards in NAFTA 2.0 “far exceed those in any other international trade agreement” and they’re spending big to convince Congress to pass the deal with these new monopoly protections intact.

On the other side, dozens of consumer, retiree, faith and public health organizations have warned that approving this pact as written would cripple efforts to lower medicine prices. They’re urging Congress to “demand that the administration eliminate the provisions in the NAFTA 2.0 text that undermine affordable access to medicines in the United States and abroad.”

While many Democratic Members of Congress are doing exactly that, Representative Jimmy Panetta has chosen to remain silent on this issue. Despite multiple requests from constituents, including myself, he did not add his name to a recent letter urging the administration to remove pharmaceutical company giveaways from its NAFTA deal.

As the debate over how to revise NAFTA comes to a head this fall, hopefully, Representative Panetta and others in Congress will recognize that the health of their constituents should come before the profits of big pharmaceutical companies.

Hannah Lyon is the co-founder of Cancer Families for Affordable Medicine.



Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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