[CTC] Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility NAFTA letter

Thu Sep 12 13:38:48 PDT 2019

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Chloe Noël <chloe at maryknollogc.org>
Date: Thu, Sep 12, 2019, 4:33 PM
Subject: FW: Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility NAFTA letter
To: Arthur Stamoulis <arthur at citizenstrade.org>

Dear CTC Colleagues,

I wish to share with you the following letter. The Interfaith Center on
Corporate Responsibility represents 300 faith-based and institutional
investors collectively representing over $500 billion in invested capital.
They just released a letter opposing the current NAFTA deal based on the
pharmaceuticals provision. The Maryknoll Sisters and Maryknoll Fathers and
Brothers are ICCR members.

Press statement link
https://www.iccr.org/investors-urge-no-vote-revised-nafta-agreement

Letter link:
https://www.iccr.org/sites/default/files/page_attachments/iccr_letter_to_congress_nafta_9.12.19.pdf

*Letter Text*

*September 12, 2019*

Dear Representative/Senator:

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) is a coalition of
more than 300 institutional investors collectively representing over $500
billion in invested capital.  Our members comprise a cross section of
religious investors, pension funds, foundations, asset managers, and other
long-term institutional investors. ICCR members regularly engage the
management of corporations to mitigate social and environmental risks
resulting from corporate operations and policies. Our fundamental
proposition as investors is that responsible and sustainable business
practices are in the long-term interest of companies, investors and
communities.

As an organization consisting of faith and values-based investors, we
believe in the inherent dignity of each person. Trade agreements can have
enormous impacts on the ability of the sick and the poor to access the
medicines they need for healing and indeed for their very survival.
Additionally, as long-term investors in the pharmaceutical industry we have
a vested interest in market regulations that foster healthy competition
amongst the companies in our portfolios.

We write today to express our strong opposition to provisions in the
renegotiated version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
signed on November 30, 2018 that would lock in extended monopoly rights for
pharmaceutical companies that would protect them from generic competition
and thus help them keep medicine prices unconscionably expensive.

The revised NAFTA text requires signatory governments to guarantee
pharmaceutical corporations various means to extend the duration of their
20-year patent monopolies, which would delay the sale of cheaper generic
versions of medicines.  In addition, the revised NAFTA requires that
manufacturers of biologic drugs be provided with at least ten years of
special exclusivity protections separate from patents. This would lock the
United States into a regime that keeps cancer and other cutting-edge
biologic medicine prices excessively high while exporting this model to
Mexico, which now does not provide any additional exclusivity period for
biologic medicines, and to Canada, which now has an eight-year period. This
would make life-saving treatments prohibitively expensive, as some of these
medicines already cost more than $200,000 per year per patient.[1] Biologic
drugs are an increasing portion of healthcare spending, and access to
lower-priced biologics are estimated to offer 3 percent or $54 billion in
savings over the next decade.[2] These pharmaceutical provisions are
inconsistent with President Trump’s declared policy of lowering drug prices
and promoting competition.

Americans are reeling from the excessive cost of prescription drugs and are
unified in demanding relief. There is bipartisan agreement that lowering
prescription drug prices should be the top domestic priority of the 116th
Congress.[3] One in seven people cannot take their medication because the
cost is too high, leaving 3.8 million Americans without necessary
medication.[4] A recent poll found that 84 percent believe trade policy
should lower and not increase drug prices, and almost three out of four
Americans are concerned that the revised NAFTA would negatively impact drug
prices, delay patient access to more affordable generic and biosimilar
medicine and impose new barriers to the development of lower-cost medicine.
[5]

As long-term investors in the pharmaceutical industry, we are concerned
that the revised NAFTA provides continued incentives to specialty drug
companies to pursue business strategies that further delay competition, and
are based on revenue increases reliant on drug price increases rather than
the development of new life-saving medicine. We do not believe that such
business strategies are sustainable in the long-term, nor are they
consistent with the recent Business Roundtable statement addressing the
purpose of a corporation.[6] Several pharmaceutical companies were
signatories to this statement including Bristol Myers-Squibb, Johnson &
Johnson and Pfizer.

The revised NAFTA would undermine congressional reforms to lower
prescription drug prices given the pact’s terms that obligate all signatory
countries to provide the expansive monopoly protections described above.
The pact as written would cost the nation’s patients, job creators,
workers, long-term investors in the pharmaceutical market, and taxpayers.
It is critical that members of Congress retain the right to enact reforms
to lower prescription drug prices, including by modifying biologic
exclusivity to address health care budgets and the deficit.

We urge you to vote “no” on the revised NAFTA unless and until the
administration removes these harmful pharmaceutical provisions.
Additionally, if the new deal is to counter NAFTA’s incentives to outsource
jobs, then strengthened labor and environmental standards with real
enforcement mechanisms must be added. Congress should not hold a vote on
the deal until these essential improvements are made to the text of the
agreement.

We look forward to your prompt reply.

Sincerely,

*Josh Zinner, CEO*
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility

*Meg Jones-Monteiro, Program Director *Interfaith Center on Corporate
Responsibility

Chloe Noël

Faith Economy Ecology Program Manager

Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns

200 New York Avenue NW

Washington, D.C. 20001

202-832-1780
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